


Children of the Grave

by Julorean



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Crossover, Gen, M/M, Sexual Content, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-25
Updated: 2013-01-25
Packaged: 2017-11-26 19:43:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/653756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Julorean/pseuds/Julorean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It turns out fighting zombies in another world is a lot like being on tour. But this tour is affecting them in ways they never expected, and even Brian isn't immune. But together, they might just be able to get home before The Black Parade comes for My Chemical Romance. </p>
<p>Crossover with the videogame Brutal Legend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Children of the Grave

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally posted on LJ](http://bandombigbang.livejournal.com/162344.html), decided to repost here once I got an account. 
> 
> Knowledge of Brutal Legend is helpful, but not necessary. Focus is on MCR. It's a fucking awesome game though. The world looks like a heavy metal album cover. Demonic nuns, gothic zombies, and loads of references and cameos (Ozzy Osbourne, Rob Halford, and Tim Curry are but a few). Excellent visuals and interesting story. 
> 
> I do recommend perusing the [wiki](http://brutallegend.wikia.com/wiki/Br%C3%BCtal_Legend_Wiki) tho. 
> 
>    
> Many many thanks to my excellent beta thebigmachines! My story’s so much better for her numerous notes and tireless grammar wrangling. Also thanks to vinvy and iron_fist123 for support and encouragement!
> 
> And a huge thank you goes to my awesome artist turlough and marvelous mixer crowgirl13, they did fantastic work!
> 
>   [Wallpaper](http://julorean.livejournal.com/57042.html)
> 
>   [Fanmix](http://julorean.livejournal.com/57146.html)

 

 

 

 

 

The entire building was shaking, vibrating like a plucked guitar string. Brian fled towards where he’d last left the band. Things were quaking and falling. It was dark, the surroundings barely visible among the falling sparks.

Brian ran down the hallway. In the last shower of sparks, he could see Gerard, and following behind him in the dim light were the rest of the guys. Just before he reached them, something large and shadowy seemed to move in the corner of his eye, heading straight towards them. He recoiled instinctively and tripped in the weak light on the uneven, quivering floor. The thing exploded silently, the pressure wave snatching them up, and then everything was gone.

The next thing he knew, shards of brightness were stabbing into Brian's skull. He groaned, reluctantly crawling back into consciousness. The ground under him felt hard and lumpy. Great, he was lying on a bunch of rocks, that couldn't be good for his back. Ha, being a tour manager wasn’t the healthiest of occupations, anyway. Even concrete would be better. He had fond memories of concrete.

Brian opened his eyes and immediately wished he hadn't. The sky roiled in shades of sickly orange and ochre. The greenish gray clouds left him feeling nauseous just by the way they rolled and shifted across the polluted-looking sky. It was a place where even Gerard’s paper-and-ink terrors would loathe to go. He was in a long room, one side of it open to the air. The rough carved stone was littered with numerous bones as well as rocky debris. Brian gulped. He had spotted a few that still had bits of desiccated flesh clinging to them.

He’d thought Warped Tour was bad. This place put his nightmares to shame. Mysterious desolated ruins never boded well for anyone, if the horror movies My Chemical Romance watched were any indication. Then he noticed the odd colored patches on the walls and felt even sicker. Oh Jesus fucking Christ. The patches pulsed at odd intervals, fleshy growths sprouting in and around the walls. Oh no. Oh no no no, this could not be happening, this was just a really, _really_ bad dream; he must've had too much bad tequila the night before, though now he remembered quite clearly that the last place he’d been was a possibly imploding venue. He spared a brief thought for the guys as he stood. He had to get out of here. Hopefully there was a road, a trail, a fucking dirt path that went anywhere but here.

"Oh hello," said a voice that sounded like garden shears and broken bones. "The humans know better than to wander into these lands alone. Or at all, really. All the better for us. It has been quite a while since we had a new plaything."

Brian gulped and turned around, that morbid urge that made people gawk at car accidents compelling him to look at whatever horror lay behind him. Better to face it than getting stabbed in the back.

There stood the blasphemous offspring of Catholicism and Giger. She was almost human-shaped, but stood twice as tall, her body a rail-thin parody of the feminine figure. The nun’s habit was a slinky deep crimson dress slit almost all the way up to the thigh, showing death-white skin and thigh-high boots that matched the habit. The clothes, if you could call them that, seemed more like a tough protective hide. Protruding metallic gray teeth were set into a shark-like mouth.

Brian could hear metal scraping against metal behind her, like a whole choir of scissors. A brief look revealed smaller figures, also feminine in shape, clad in the same leathery material as the “nun” with long blades arrayed on their heads that covered their faces.

A barbed, two-pronged spear embedded itself in the ground inches from his hand.

“You’re just the kind of human wreckage that we love.”

Brian opened his mouth to scream. Nothing came out.

 

The party lasted for a week. Emperor Doviculus had been defeated and his demons had been driven from Bladehenge. The humans had finally reclaimed their land and most important of all, their freedom.

Of course, there was still much to be done. Bladehenge had been reclaimed and made…well, it was livable before, but now they could actually have a _home_. The place marked by the sword of the Titans was already well-fortified by being nestled into the heart of a hill and surrounded by high earth embankments.

The traitor Lionwhyte’s former palace was being repurposed as a fortress. It had been half destroyed by the demons, but it still had great strategic value, sitting as it did at the mouth of the narrow pass from the western part of their lands into the mountains.

The work to make the former Pleasure Palace into a decent human settlement was ongoing.  Two months after the end of the war, they were still clearing out rooms. The Razor Girls especially found great satisfaction in tearing out every inch of tiger-striped and mirrored-embellished décor. Lionwhyte had sold out to the demons for personal gain, and kept many young women as slaves. The place had been a testament to his enormous ego (and to his equally big hair). They made sure to carry their Razor Bows to obliterate any sign of him that remained. The charged bolts from the crossbow-like weapons made quick work of his remaining statues and portraits. Not to mention the pink and black tiger print.

The Fire Barons hated him just as much, and eagerly aided in the dismantling. The pyromaniac bikers and the female archers were getting along like…well, like a house on fire.

One of the Girls interrupted Lita’s musings as she watched Lionwhyte’s grody furnishings burn, snacking on some roast Raptor Elk cooked over the resulting bonfire.

“Lita! We’ve got squads of the Doom coming in from the eastern mountains!”

The news was as shocking and unwelcome as an electrocution. They’d had to defeat an army of the undead zombies of the Drowning Doom to get to Doviculus and his demons.

 “What?! I thought they were done for!” They were supposed to be gone for good, aside from a few ghoulish squads that occasionally popped up in the jungle and the Forest of the Dead. They hadn’t been seen this far west since the war.

“Well apparently not!”

“Eddie!” Lita yelled. Eddie Riggs was the roadie from another world. He’d been the one to renew the war for their freedom, and they owed their success to him. He’d uncovered so many secrets thought lost. With his help, the humans were finally coming into the legacy left for them by the Titans that had created their world.

“He ain’t ‘ere,” the Baron, leader of the fire-starting bikers, told her in his gravelly voice. “Went off to help Ophelia at the Razor Fields.”

Lita swore. Well, the Fire Barons had turned the tide for them in their first battle against the revenants of the Drowned. They’d manage.

 

Lita watched the remains smolder, then vanish into the dust. With all the practice the Razor Girls were getting plus the Fire Barons’ Molotov cocktails and fast bikes, the gloomy zombies had been dispatched quickly.

Stray skirmishes were nothing strange, but there was something a bit odd about this attack. The Doom could sometimes be encountered in the foothills to the east, but they’d never ventured directly into the Palace ruins before.

She didn’t take long to think it over.

“Some of us better head out to do some recon around Death’s Clutch and the foothills,” she told Ophelia. At the start of the last war, she had freed the Razor Girls from Lionwhyte’s clutches, with the help of the near-invisible Roadies.

“Okay, I’ll come with. Something’s funky going on for sure,” she said, twirling her twin shirt swords.

And she would know. Opehlia had been the one to lead the Drowning Doom. Feeling betrayed by Eddie and everyone else, she’d jumped into the Sea of Black Tears. Her sorrows and betrayal, with the power of the Black Tears, had formed the angry doppelganger they’d dubbed Drowned Ophelia. But after the final battle with the demons by the Sea, Eddie had managed to rescue her.

“I know,” Lita agreed. “It’s outside their usual range, and honestly, the battle was too easy. There weren’t too many. Just two teams of Gravediggers and a Frightwig. Not even a Bride.”

Gravediggers, the Drowning Doom’s basic foot soldiers, came six to a squad and were armed with shovels. The Frightwigs were tougher. The disembodied heads pranced around like spiders, on long hair enhanced by the waters of the Sea of Black Tears. They could possess people by latching onto them with their tentacle-like hair. The Brides were followed wherever they went by a gloomy storm cloud that slowed everything touched by its rain.

 

 

They climbed into the foothills outside of the palace. After some hiking, they finally found it off the road that led up to the icy, mountainous reaches of Death’s Clutch.

Lita and the others stared in mixed horror and awe. The stage was half-built, but was still very impressive; it was an unfinished gothic masterpiece. It was definitely based on the Drowning Doom’s Haunted House. Parts of it looked more finished, decorated with a series of flourishes, curlicues of dark wood and metal. It was less...spiky, was all Lita could say about it. Most noticeably, the large winged skull at the back of the stage was missing. She squinted. Instead there were…stars?...yes, those were faded pale stars scattered on the backdrop. It seemed very much to belong to the Doom - the dark tone of the construction and the elaborate details ran counter to the boldness of Ironheade’s stage.

Yet it seemed – (and how Lita hated to admit this) almost, maybe, just a little - welcoming. It was the dark of a shelter rather than of caves with demonic man-eating beasts at the end of them.

Ironheade had no idea what to make of it. The stage clearly wasn't going to be used. She’d have noticed the forces amassing, and it was only half-done, anyway. No one could attack from here. But there had to be a reason for this thing to suddenly show up at Death's Clutch. Worryingly, it was quite close to where Ironheade had kept its own stage when they'd first battled the Doom in this frosty, snow-covered region. She was sure Ironheade could defeat them, if it came to that. Probably.

"Get Eddie," she told one of the Headbangers that had accompanied her. "He needs to see this."

 

"Huh," was all he said at first, examining the roughed-out shell of the stage. It was definitely different from what they'd usually seen, but almost familiar, and it niggled at him. After the war, Lita was handling everything nicely. He spent most of his time roaming the Brutal Lands, exploring majestic vistas, encountering strange creatures, and getting to know this amazing world that his father had called home.

Eddie’s eyes widened as he realized what the small, but important difference was. This stage, though incomplete, was set up for a show. A real show, a fucking concert, not a battle. True, in this world there wasn’t much difference between the two, but the thing was, there just weren’t any bands yet. They knew of music of course, but producing it was another matter. The elevated area near the back had to be a riser for the drum kit. Interestingly, there were _three_ mics set up.

He walked cautiously over every inch. It was solid despite the decaying look a lot of the Doom's stages had. This one, however, didn't look rotting at all. Just...dark, but not gloomy. It was less  decaying and more…polished, and actually was looking pretty fancy with those trimmings.

"I have no idea what's going on with the Doom, but something is, for sure," he told her.

Ophelia rolled her eyes. "Pretty sure we worked that out, thanks. We did manage to survive without you while you were off wandering all over the place after the war," she said. She loved Eddie, but he could be kinda dumb sometimes.

"Hey!” he said, giving a sheepish smile. Then he grew thoughtful. “Still. They never did anything like this when we were fighting 'em. It's set up just a little differently too. I've seen this kind of on-stage set up loads of times, but that was always back in my world."

Lita gave him a slightly surprised look.

"You don't think...that someone else came through and is leading them?"

"What? Hell no! The place would be crawling with Gravediggers and shit. No, it seems like they're working on their own."

"But obviously something's made them change." Lita turned to Ophelia and raised an eyebrow.

"Hey, don't look at me like that!"

It took a lot of work, but Lita was eventually able to forgive Ophelia. She'd seen how the real Ophelia had been trapped within the Sea. Lita knew quite well how someone could be driven by a single set of emotions like hate, or revenge. She'd seen the edge of it, and had been able to step back. She’d had to, to be able to lead her people like they deserved after her brother’s death. But things were still awkward between them sometimes.

"Hey, Ophelia, calm down. It couldn't be you, you were with us or Eddie pretty much all the time. No, something else has made the Doom resurge."

Ophelia's wary look faded. "They're preparing for something. If it's not a battle..."

"Then is it some _one_?" Eddie finished.

 

 

 

Gerard came to with a heavy weight on his chest. He groaned and poked at it.

“Mrrmph,” said the lump. It sounded like Frank. He blinked, seeming to take a few moments to recognize Gerard.

“You’re alive!” Frank rejoiced, squeezing his sides.

“Yeah. And you’re heavy,” Gerard told him.

“Ugh,” was his only comment as he rolled off his friend and onto the hard stone floor.

“What happened?" he asked as he took a minute to appreciate the ceiling. It was tall and cavernous, soft darkness filling up all the spaces past the arched windows and sending whispery tentacles down the spaces in between. It reminded Gerard of dreary Sundays spent in church, only his childhood hadn’t been so creepy.  

He sat up gingerly, feeling rather bruised all over. His bandmates were doing the same, Mikey extracting his legs from where he’d somehow landed half under Bob.

“I think…it felt like an earthquake?” Ray said cautiously. “There was an explosion or a flash of light or _something_ and I ran and then…it all went black.”

The others nodded. It was the same for them. They finally staggered upright and examined their surroundings.

“Shit,” said Mikey.

It was like going through the looking glass, like they’d gone straight _into_ the backdrop they used as The Black Parade. Everything was… _dark_. It looked like they were in an echoing cathedral, thin rays of purplish light barely filtering through dirtied stained glass. The pews were cracked and dusty. The candelabras looked like spidery shrubs, a dim yellow glow shining from the tips of tarnished branches.

For a few minutes they huddled by the pile of rubble where the altar would usually be, just reassuring each other with their mutual presence.

“Fuck this, I am leaving,” Bob growled, striding towards the tall double doors just barely visible at the end of the nave. The others just stared for a few seconds, possibly awestruck by his bravery. Then Frank scrambled after him, and the others followed. Like fuck they’d stay in this creepy-ass deserted church thing.

With all five of them pulling at the huge door, they finally managed to get it open enough to slip through to the outside. What greeted them wasn’t much better than the inside.

The area seemed to be in a perpetual twilight; whether it was because it was actually nighttime, or due to thick cloud cover, no one could tell. The sky was blank. It seemed oddly pale, like city lights reflecting off clouds.

But that couldn’t be, for they were surrounded by debris, chunks of stone or possibly concrete scattered around, piled up against the shells of buildings. Skeletons of trees clawed out of the ruins. Scrubby black rose bushes peeked out of the debris. It looked like a war zone. Despite the destruction there were clear wide paths through the rubble. It looked strangely familiar, which what the fuck, they’d remember if they’d ever passed through a bombed out place like this.

“Gwah!” Frank made a choked noise. “There better not be a float with skulls on it waiting for us around the corner.”

“Huh?”

“Like we had in the Black Parade video. Seriously, you guys, we didn’t make it that fucking long ago,” Frank said in irritation. “Bob being on fire was exciting and traumatic, but I doubt even that could make Gerard forget about the costumes and shit,” he added impishly. “Anyway, after they added the effects, it looked just like this. It was all ruined and gray.”

“Fuck, he’s right,” Ray realized. “It’s…so much creepier in person.”

Naturally. It was one thing to dress in black when you could always step out into the sunlight again. But if you couldn’t…

“Shitshitshit…okay guys, this is freaky, but we might as well get fucking moving,” Gerard urged. “This place can’t go on forever.”

They picked a direction that seemed to have more of the skeletal trees and started walking.

 

 

The debris eventually thinned out and soon disappeared altogether. It wasn’t much of a comfort; the stands of gloomy trees got thicker, their bare limbs closing overhead. The dry grayish grass rustled as they walked over it. Now and then they passed large bushes laden with thorns and inky black roses. Even more disconcerting were the wooden structures they occasionally encountered along the faint path they’d stumbled upon. They were simply two posts connected by a beam, reminiscent of a garden arbor, but the only fruit was a row of rough rope nooses.

Finally, after what felt like forever…

“Guys!” Mikey nudged his brother, who was closest. “Look!” He pointed to a flickering spot of light. It was a warm orange, a beacon among the washed-out dreariness of the forest.

“Oh thank fuck!”

Gerard, like all of them, was too tired to go running headlong towards this sign of civilization (at fucking last!). But he saw how his bandmates perked up a little bit, finding just a little more in them to keep going. Fire meant people, and these people would know a way out of this godforsaken forest.

He hoped.

 

 

Yula was keeping watch, along with two of the Razor Girls. Her Metal Beast was drowsing, at rest but ready to incinerate any threats at a moment’s notice. It had been months since the war had been won, but the battles were not yet over. The demons had been defeated, beaten back into the festering pits from which they came, but the Drowning Doom remained disturbingly persistent. They had attacked near the Cleave first, but soon enough there were attacks among the jungle, as well. And so, the Zaulia had joined the humans from the western lands once more. They patrolled regularly, small squads keeping eyes out for any rogue Tear-Drinkers and either engaging them or warning the main encampments of larger attacks.  

_Crunch. Snap._ It sounded like a small group. Couldn’t be more than a team of Gravediggers, and perhaps a Frightwig.

“There,” she told the Razor Girls quietly, indicating the area with her spear. “Wake your comrades and surround them.”

A soft rustle and the whooshing of air was their only warning. The members of My Chemical Romance screamed and threw themselves to the ground, somehow avoiding the _huge burst of flame_ that came out of fucking nowhere.

They shrieked, rolling out of the way and running in the direction of the campfire.

_Jesus fucking Christ,_ Bob thought frantically as tried to follow Frank through the trees. _Why did I join this band again_? _Crazy fans and now creepy death trees and flamethrowers!_

Of course, after nearly being incinerated, it only got better. The five young men ran straight into a squad of girls carrying these huge metal THINGS and they were very sharp and pointy and looked quite deadly indeed.

Bob summed things up quite well. "Shit."

_Rummffff_ something snuffled from behind them, as if in reply.

Ray turned slowly to see what it is. His eyes widened at the giant black-furred cat behind him. It was an odd creature. Its face was covered in fine white fur, patterns in black creating a half-familiar mask effect.

Then his eyes caught on the sharp metal point poised above him. They traveled along the shaft of a spear to a fine hand. He gulped as he took in the cat's rider. Perched on top of the cat was an attractive young woman, clad in bits of leather that covered a little less skin than a bikini. She wore stark black and white make-up that mirrored the face of her mount, and a deep bloody red on her lips. He squeaked as he realized just how little she was wearing and quickly looked away.

Yula's mouth quirked just a little at the discomfort of the curly-haired one. All men reacted like that. Still, it hadn’t yet stopped being amusing.

Gerard wasn’t making any headway in negotiations.

"Okay could you please tell us what's going on? We've been walking for hours, you're the first people we've seen, and we'd like very much to know where the hell we are!"

The weapons didn't move. The band all had their hands raised in surrender.

The members of the patrol were murmuring amongst themselves. These people weren't like any of the Doom they'd ever seen. They had no weapons, and while that didn't really mean anything, there weren't any noticeable effects lingering around the five strange uniformed men, either – no depressing gloom or syrupy feeling of lethargy.

"Quiet, Doom dorks," one Razor Girl spoke fiercely, poking her weapon sharply in Frank’s direction.

Gerard looked offended.

"Look, man, we're just a few guys in a rock band from New Jersey and all we're trying to do is find out where we are so we can find our way back and play our show. Can you help us or not?"

 

The word _band_ sent a ripple of thoughtful murmuring through the group.

"Funny, you look an awful lot like the Drowning Doom," spoke up one of the burly soldiers.

"Drowning Doom? What the fuck? Never heard of them," Gerard said, kinda baffled. "Cool name though. We're My Chemical Romance."

"You'll have to come with us," Yula declared. While they did not _seem_ to be a threat, the resemblance was too close to just allow them to go free. The Drowned weren't exactly known for innovation, especially when not under central leadership, but who knew what might happen? Perhaps the dark currents could stir something even more sinister from underneath the Sea of Black Tears.

They each got a couple of guards.

"Great, more walking," Mikey grumbled.

"I know, Mikes," Frank sympathized. "But I guess we should be glad they didn't spear us with those things, holy shit. Those chicks must be strong, did you see what they were carrying?"

"She could break you in half even without that laser crossbow thing she has," Mikey agreed.

Yula examined the five they had found in the forest as they traveled. She'd bring them to Lita and let her decide. Between her and Ophelia, they’d surely know if these strangers truly belonged to the Sea or not.

 

 

 

“The fuck is a Drowning Doom?!” Frank complained as they hiked to the encampment. “Geez, I know we’re not always welcome, but no one’s wanted to kill us before!”

“Well there was that one time in Newark…” Ray chimed in sardonically, mouth twisted in an-almost smile.

After traveling for a while they finally emerged into a large clearing, the trees much less thick, though the terrain had gotten more hilly.

Gerard stopped in his tracks. One of his guards nudged him with the side of her Razor bow. "Hey. Keep it moving."

"Wow," was all he could say. He was enraptured by the multitude of stars shining in the night sky above them. It was a stunning sight to someone who had grown up in a city. Around New York City, if you were lucky, you might see enough for a single constellation. A small one. The light pollution was visible for miles, especially on cloudy days. The clouds held the glow from the city like warmth in a blanket.

This....this was something he'd only ever seen in books, or like, on the Discovery Channel. He heard soft sounds of awe from his friends that signified they were equally impressed.

Then his gaze caught on something large and round and bright to his left. His brain wasn't quite sure what to make of it for a few long seconds. _Don't be stupid_ , he thought, _it's not the sun, of course, the sky is dark, duh._

The patterns of light and shade on the glowing globe shifted and suddenly made sense. It was a moon. And the moon. Was HUGE. And. And it was a SKULL.

A _SKULL_. In the SKY.

WHAT.

His brain ground to a halt and his stomach swooped. Unless somebody from NASA decided that the moon needed to be made substantially more awesome and carved a new design into its face, they definitely weren't home anymore. Hell, maybe not even on the same _planet_. And even when he put together what he was looking at, he was still bewildered - the sky was dark, but why was it so bright? But it was _moonlight_ illuminating the clearing, about as brightly as the sun would as it filtered through on a very cloudy day.

Gerard wobbled. A large warm hand steadied him. "Ray," Gerard said in a strangled voice.

"I know," he replied quietly. "But we have to keep going. These guys live here, and hopefully we'll get some explanations soon. We're not dead yet, and hey, at least these aliens speak English."

Gerard's mouth quirked minutely at the weak humor. "Onward, men," he murmured. He spared a second to think how they were the aliens here, on completely new ground.

 

 

By the time the moon was just a dome setting on the horizon, they had arrived at a larger camp. They heard the noise first. Somehow, it gave them a little more hope. The crackle of fire, the murmur of people conversing – it made this new world a little less strange, a bit more lived in.

The members of My Chemical Romance only got a glance at a semi-circle of intriguing vehicles (was that a giant skull? On wheels?) as they were marched into the center of the camp.

The troop was led by the spear-carrying Amazon with the fire-breathing big cat, flanked by two of the Razor Girls (as they had been informed was the term for the ladies that carried those nasty looking crossbows that rained fiery death from afar). They stopped in front of a regal-looking woman with long blond hair and kohl-rimmed eyes. Her low-cut leather top was….rather distracting, but the blade-topped staff she held with confidence made it clear she was dangerous. As they approached she’d shifted it to a two-handed grip, ready to attack.

 “Lita. They say they are not of the Drowned,” said the scary looking lady with the face paint from her perch on top of a giant cat creature.

“We found these guys wandering in the forest north of the Sea,” chimed in one of the Razor Girls standing next to the cat. 

Lita eyed the lost musicians critically.

“You are weaponless?” she finally settled on asking.

“Well yeah!” said Frank. “We didn’t have time to grab our instruments before we ended up in this place, and it’s not like a guitar is a weapon! I mean, you can hit someone with it but then it would break so you’re much better off playing music on it!” he rambled.

She frowned slightly when he mentioned guitars, her face becoming more guarded.

“We have no idea how we got here and you don’t have to point fucking spears at us, we didn’t do shit, we’re not out to doom anything! I don’t know what you have against black, you guys seem to be wearing enough of it…” Gerard started to rant.

“…or not wearing it,” muttered Bob, eyes flicking over to the half-naked Amazon on the big cat thing before skittering back to face their captors. Seriously, there was very little left to the imagination. The spiked arm guards were the more practical parts of her outfit. A loincloth was held up by what seemed to be mere scraps of leather. Her sleeveless top covered her neck and the top of her chest, stopping well short of what even a bikini would cover. Bob could feel himself blushing just from the glimpse of the naked lower curve of her breasts.

“We’re My Chemical Romance, doom is the last thing we want!” Gerard kept insisting earnestly, white hair sticking up from him running his fingers through it. “Our band, we fucking save lives!” he nearly yelled at the grim-looking woman who was wearing nearly as much eyeliner as he was. She seemed quite doubtful that they were a band of any sort, and would certainly prefer running them through with her very pointy blade-on-a-stick. It had a technical name, Gerard was sure, but he was too scared to think of it at the moment, thank you.

Mikey was the first to notice the distant roar of motorcycles, nudging Bob as the noise grew closer, screeching above the noise of the people around them. One screamed to a stop not ten feet away.

“Lita, what the hell is going on now, was there another attack!?! I could’ve sworn we got all of them, I made sure they burned…” the voice trailed off as its owner drew closer, fighting his way into the throng of people surrounding the band.

He gaped at them.

“Well fuck _me_ ,” Brian Schechter declared, still staring at My Chemical Romance.

The guys stared back. Not only because they certainly hadn’t expected their manager to show up in this crazy world, but also because Brian was wearing rather more black leather than they’d ever imagined they’d see him in. The pants clung snugly, and the vest decorated with lines of metal studs showed off some really rather nice biceps.

Frank made a noise. Gerard opened his mouth, then closed it when nothing came out but a quiet squeak. _Were those new tattoos?_ he wondered briefly. Then he suddenly realized how long he'd been staring and felt his face heat up.

“You know them?” Lita questioned.

Brian blinked and shifted his gaze to her. He still seemed a little dazed. It was odd. He held his emotions close. Lita couldn’t recall ever seeing him so off-balance.

“Yeah,” he finally said. “Yeah. You can quit pointing your halberd at ‘em, they’re harmless really. They’re not zombies, that’s for fucking sure.” He chuckled at the last bit, then fell into full-blown laughter, hysteria creeping in at the edges.

She just stared at him. All the Fire Barons were at least a little bit nuts, but this was…what the hell was going on with him?

“What is my life,” he asked himself quietly.  “Of fucking _course_ you’d show up _here_. This fucking band,” he said, rubbing at the side of his face in exasperation. “Well come on guys,” he commanded them, capturing their gaze again and holding it steady, giving them a ‘serious manager’ face.

The members of My Chemical Romance followed obediently, hoping that Brian would make things make sense again.

He led them to a campfire. “Sit,” he commanded. “I gotta go talk to Lita, that’s the boss-lady with the big pointy thing she can use to kill you with, if you didn’t notice.”

He gazed at them for a few moments more, an almost…desperate?...look briefly flitting over his face. Then he shook his head and left.

They sat in quiet hope, relishing the warmth of the fire after the chilly forest, all the while staring after Brian like a pack of lost puppies as he spoke with the intimidating woman some distance away.

 

 

Lita stared at Brian as he led away the dark-clad young men. The normally rather stoic biker had been thrown completely off kilter. She hadn't seen him so discombobulated since....well, since the first time she'd met him.

They had been stunned to find another person from Eddie's world - especially Eddie himself. He'd never expected to find any sort of link back to the place he'd left. It's not as if summoning the Great Fire-Beast was common around here, and he didn't really want to return; he'd adapted very well to the Brutal Lands. But then again, his parents had originated here, even with one of them being a demon. Eddie himself had said that he’d never felt that he really quite fit in anywhere before. Roadie-ing, being among music, was the closest he’d come until he'd arrived in their world.

The Fire Barons often rode where no sane person would dare, looking for fights. They'd picked Brian up on the outskirts of the demons’ badlands, torn up, bleeding and half delirious. They could tell he wasn't one of Ironheade, and brought him directly to the Kill Master, leader of the bass-playing Thunderhog healers. If only to keep him alive long enough to find out where he'd come from, anyway. His wounds made it evident he’d met some demons. What made it even more intriguing was that he’d gotten away alive when he hadn’t even had a weapon of any kind on him.  

Brian was something else entirely, as they found. Those who survived the venom were often visibly altered, acquiring demonic features. He recovered from the demonic poison, and displayed a talent for fighting. He’d managed to briefly get the better of the Baron even when he was still weak from fever. Astonishingly, his visage remained entirely human; the only reminder of the venom’s effect was his new power over fire. He had a good head for planning, too, which made him even more valuable. Lita would’ve been more than glad to have him stay in Bladehenge and act as one of her advisors, but for his own reasons he remained with the Fire Barons. Sometimes he came around on his own though, and helped her out.

 

 

Lita noted with approval how several Razor Girls had formed a loose perimeter around the small group they'd found. It wasn’t obvious that they were being guarded, but if they did get up to anything Ironheade could respond quickly and forcefully.

Brian stalked up to her, face intense.

"Brian, what-?" she exclaimed as he grabbed her upper arm and leaned in close. He pointed to the small band of black clad men that he'd seemed so familiar with.

"Lita. Tell me. Do you see those guys there? Wearing those black and white uniforms, looking pale and tired?"

"The new Drowned ones? I've never seen any with white hair like that before, but if it's a new kind of Doom then- !"

The grip on her arm abruptly loosened as Brian sagged against her.

"Fuuuuuck," he breathed out. "They're there? You see them too?" He looked up at her with such an open desperate look, she couldn't say another word. He was shaking, and Lita was getting a little twitchy herself. He was acting oddly, even for him.

"Brian, what's going on? Do you really know them?"

He laughed, a little hysterically.

"Yeah. Oh yeah." He turned back to look at them again. "They're my band. Back on Earth, I've been their manager for a few years now." He rubbed at his eyes. "Even with Eddie around I'd started to believe it was all a dream or something, that I’d always been here, anything before a life of fire and steel was just me going crazy. There were a couple times when I could’ve swore I saw them, like ghosts among the trees. But they're here, they really fucking are, and I'm not hallucinating." Brian took a deep breath. "I'd missed them," he said wistfully.

Lita was taken aback. This was more tenderness than she'd ever seen him display. It was disconcerting to see it on the face of someone who had clawed his way to being the Baron's right hand man with his ruthlessness and fighting ability, not to mention his talent for organization.

He stood up straight and collected himself. "They're My Chemical Romance, and despite all appearances, they're definitely not part of the Drowning Doom." He chuckled. "The outfits were Gerard's idea; he's the one with the white hair. First time I saw him after he'd bleached it all to hell and back..." He smiled fondly at the memory. It had been very startling, but he had to admit it fit the album perfectly.

Then his mouth set grimly. "I better go explain things to 'em. They've gotta be freaking out. Hell, I know I was." He looked briefly back to Lita. "Don't worry. Everything's fine. And besides, you know I can handle it if shit does go down," he smirked.

At that, Lita did relax. A little bit, anyway. Her people were always paramount. She trusted him, and Brian did know what he was doing.

She turned to meet Ophelia, who had been apparently been waiting.

“So, what do you think?”

“You know I can’t feel the Doomed anymore, it’s not really more than a hunch if they’re active or not. But…they really don’t feel like they’re Drowned. Too much life in ‘em. Still, the Kill Master could tell for sure.” 

 

 

“Man, are we glad to see you,” Frank enthused as Brian joined them around the fire. His conversation with…what was her name? Lena? Had looked pretty intense. But the need to know just _what the hell was going on_ was even more pressing. “So. Spill. How the hell did you get _here_?”

“No idea. We were in the…was it the Midwest?”

 The band shrugged. Tour quickly turned into an endless string of cities with boring roads in-between.

“…and the venue started collapsing. I ran like hell, couldn’t see where I was going, and here I am. Maybe it was a cosmic rift or what the fuck ever, you’re the comic book geeks, you tell me,” Brian went on as he snapped his fingers, lighting a cigarette with the resultant flame pinched in between thumb and index finger.

Their eyes got even bigger and rounder.

“What? They do have cigarettes here, I probably would’ve gone nuts otherwise,” he said as he shook the spark off his fingers and into the campfire. They remained boggled.

“Hmm? Oh,” he glanced down at the lit cigarette and his unburned fingers. “Fuck,” he muttered, looking perturbed. “Never thought I’d ever get used to that, and here I am.”

“You. Fire. _Fwoosh_ ,” Gerard stammered, hands flapping about in an effort to express what he currently wasn’t managing with words.

Brian sighed. “Yeaaaaah. There’s definitely some magic-y shit going on. There are demons and zombies ‘stead of elves.”

“Demons?” Bob said faintly.

Brian nodded, mouth set grimly. “You thought where you came in was bad, you do NOT wanna know what the demons’ land is like. Lots of bones, and that’s the least offensive thing about it.” He shuddered at the memory. “I’ve been here a few months already. The Fire Barons found me, and since I’d rather not get eaten by demons, I joined up with their pyro motorcycle gang.”

Mikey made a noise.

“Motorcycles!?” Frank said, looking rather gobsmacked.

“Zombies?” Gerard said feebly.

Brian shrugged. “That’s what they are, nearest I can figure. The Drowning Doom, I mean. Wear lots of black. Really gloomy-looking.”

He wiggled his fingers at the musicians. “Not hard to see where Lita and the others could’ve gotten confused.” He smiled thinly.

“They told me about the previous war against the demons. A lot of people used the Sea of Black Tears. It’s… a big lake of emo, basically. It gave them powers, but then they went crazy or something. They were massacred by the demons. All that was left was that creepy dead forest.”

His band remained quiet. The flickering flames showed tired faces, exhaustion beyond what he’d seen after seemingly endless hours on the road.

“Come on guys. We’ll head out in the morning, get back into town. You need to lie down already or you really will turn into the walking dead.”

“They have towns?” Ray murmured wonderingly.

Brian showed himself to still be a consummate manager as he somehow found them an unoccupied tent, even it being in the middle of the night. They settled in the pile of blankets. It was still more comfortable than the cheap motels they’d had back when they were started out. And much better than a van.

Exhausted but glad for the presence of their friends, the five musicians fell asleep quickly.

 

 

Brian stood at the tent-flap for a few minutes, just to reassure himself the band was really here. Part of him still couldn’t believe it. Some days he had a hard enough time believing he was in an insane world where demons and zombies roamed the earth, the trees were made of scaffolding, and even the deer could eat you.

A wistful look passed over his face as he gazed at Gerard, curled up on his side in a nest of blankets and bandmates. He looked comfortable. Though they _had_ slept in worse places.

He had no idea what he'd do now. It was immensely reassuring to know that he wasn't nuts, that he really had traveled to another world. It was better than being insane, assuming he wasn't a little crazy already. But maybe he always had been, he had taken such a risk on the boys currently conked out on the floor of that tent. Look at them, they were in full-on stage costume too. Well, maybe they'd be a step up from zombies after they'd gotten some sleep.

He wandered back to where he'd left his motorcycle and leaned against it, thinking. He'd seen how they'd looked at him with his little fire trick. What would they think of him for joining up with a ruthless gang of bikers? The Fire Barons weren't too bad though. Decent drinking buddies, at least. Didn't bug him when he was feeling melancholy.

Though some of that was probably because he could fry them.

The reminder of his old life led him to wonder how far he’d come since he’d been dropped into this heavy metal fantasy world. My Chem had gotten off lightly, seemed like they'd ended up among the forest. Creepy, but not too hostile aside from wandering squads of the Doom and a few animals.

No, he'd ended up out in the Badlands, by the home of the demons. Lucky him. With no ruler, not too many of the Tainted Coil showed up in the human kingdom...well, it was a queendom, now, wasn’t it?

The land was hostile, dry and desolate, broken ruins pitted from the wind. And then there was the demonic infection within the land itself. Bloated pustules dotted the landscape, slimy-looking tentacles of sick-looking flesh twining like the most malicious ivy up the sides of some of the remaining walls of the once-glorious buildings.

Then, there had been the Battle Nun and that Punishing Party. He shuddered. He was glad enough now for those damned crazy outlaws. They’d found him and brought him to a healer. 

They’d fixed him up as best he could, but Brian had been poisoned by the demons. The cuts and scrapes were gone, but not even the Kill Master had been able to help the demonic venom coursing through his veins. To their surprise, Brian had pulled through the fever and delirium.

Even more surprising was when he had set the entire tent _on fire_ when the Baron was checking in on him, and startled him from sleep. He'd had no idea where he was and ended up giving the other man some nasty scrapes and no few bruises in the fight that followed, before the leader of the rogue bikers had managed to subdue him.

The Baron had only laughed in the face of Brian’s glare and said, "Oh, you'll fit right in with us, son." With his pyro skills and aptitude for violence, it seemed only natural for Brian to join up with the Fire Barons. He had to fight dirty to find a place in this world, and ended up being good enough to be more or less second-in-command to the Baron himself. The fairly nomadic life suited the restless young man. _Maybe_ , Brian thought to himself, _I can admit now that I was hoping if I looked hard enough, I could get back_.

 

 

Brian flung open the flap of the tent. "Time to get up, guys, we gotta get moving."

The light thumped onto Gerard’s head. He joined the chorus of groans emitted from the tangled pile of blankets and band members.

"Just five more minutes, pleeeeease," Mikey moaned.

"Sorry guys, but it ain't a request," Brian said, nudging them with his boots. When the nudges failed to produce any significant movement, he graduated to kicking.

Gerard reluctantly sat up, struggling up from his twisted position lying on his side. He blinked at Brian in the bright morning light coming from the opening of the tent. He made a startled, almost whimpering noise.

"Oh god, so it _was_ real," he said, stunned. They weren’t at home, they weren’t even on the same _planet_. Oh, and Brian was wearing leather pants, which definitely wasn’t helping his state of mind either.

"Yep, unfortunately, we gotta get going,” Brian said, sounding disgusting cheerful. “Zombies could attack at any moment! And I really don't want you here for that. Shame on me, if after all these years my band gets killed by zombies."

"Killing zombies would be awesome," Frank said sleepily.

"We gotta head to Bladehenge," their manager continued. "I think I got Lita on our side, but everyone else will probably still think you're evil. And I'd like to have a solid roof over my head while I try to figure out what to do with you."

With much prodding and a couple of what they still couldn’t quite admit were fireballs, My Chemical Romance was finally up and moving.

"You guys are in luck, you won't have to walk," Brian told them.

Mikey made a noise like a small dying animal. "Can we get some coffee first?"

 

 

Things were going pretty well. They met up with Ophelia and her group on their way to the Cleave. It used to be the Cleave of the Impaler, but many of the giant tower-mounted crossbows had been dismantled and converted into Headsplitter vehicles. They were lucky enough to have a Thunderhog with them too. The Kill Master and most of his men did prefer to stay on top of their mountain, but some continued to run patrols with the rest of Ironheade.

"So you're saying they're clean?"

"For the last time, yes Lita, they're human. They're not Drowning Doom. A’course, if you want a really deep scan, you'll have to see the Kill Master for that," the healer told her.

"I will, but this really sets my mind at ease, thank you."

Ophelia just nodded and polished her swords. "See, Lita, I told you. I didn't get any vibes off them at all. They're kinda weird, but harmless," she said.

Lita mouth pursed a little bit at the subtle dig, but she relaxed. Ophelia did have the most experience with the Doom after all, though her own concern was equally valid. She was the leader, the queen, and it was her job to keep her people safe.

"Let me know if you do, okay Ophelia? I'll take off the guards, but I'm still not completely sure about them. We're still in the middle of Black Tear country, and we have to pass by the Sea on our way back to Bladehenge."

"Of course," said the young swordswoman.

 

 

Things had been fairly uneventful. The five newcomers did complain a little at the hiking, but they were trying to manage the best they could. A couple of them had been eyeing the guitars carried by a few of her soldiers. With Eddie's help in deciphering the secrets of the Titans, more of the instruments had been constructed. He and Ophelia were teaching several other Ironheade members how to play. Brian had said the guitarists of...My Chemical Romance? Or was it The Black Parade?...were quite talented. She was wary of letting them near what was a major weapon in this world. She believed they weren’t from the Drowning Doom, but still, old habits die hard. It was a little startling every time she saw Gerard. They’d probably look pretty normal once they were out of those stern uniforms and in jeans and t-shirts, but the bone-white hair was just unnatural.

Nonetheless, things were going smoothly. With that in mind, naturally it was when they passed by the accursed Sea of Black Tears that everything went wrong.

They made camp by the shore of the massive lake. Lita hated being so close, but a major storm had rolled in and they needed shelter.

"Wow," murmured Gerard.

"Well that's pretty awesome," Mikey had to agree. The road leading to it had been pretty interesting, with spindly chandeliers and the occasional noose and Gothic arches and flourishes cut out of the rocky path leading down along the canyon wall to the Sea.

The interior of the cavern resembled a cathedral. Maybe it was a cathedral that had been carved out of the rock? Who knew?

Frank snickered. "You oughta feel right at home, eh Gee?”

The white-haired singer promptly shoved him hard, then shook him a few times. "Shhh, Frank shut up! We only just gained their trust; you keep saying stuff like that they'll think we really are zombies!” Gerard paused in trying to knock some sense him. “But yeah, it's amazing here," he admitted.

It had a chilly Gothic beauty. There were elaborate buttresses and soaring panels patterned with rosettes and curlicues, like opaque stained glass windows. It was lit dimly by more purple-black candelabra bushes, tall, wide-spreading ones with a multitude of branches. Small thorny shrubs budding with black roses creeped from amid rocky outcroppings.

The entire cavern had a reddish-purple kind of cast to it. It was right in that in-between sort of color that you couldn't pin one way or another. Perhaps it was the odd lighting source, or some unique properties of the stone, or maybe even the water reflected more light than people thought; the surface was as smooth as glass, not a ripple to be seen.  Frank and Ray were off trying to convince someone to give them guitars, Bob was probably bothering Mangus, the Ironheade engineer, for a look at the sound board, and Mikey was gossiping with the Razor Girls. Brian…was off doing Brian-y things. Gerard finds himself completely unable to wrap his brain around him wearing _those_ pants. He thinks of the lean lines of Brain’s legs in the shiny black leather, and his brain comes to a stuttering halt. He’s been rather pre-occupied with their band manager lately.

"It's beautiful, in its own way, isn't it," Ophelia said, coming up behind Gerard. She kept looking out to the Sea. She’d been wary of them, of course. But she’d been watching Gerard and his friends. Despite his dark look, there was a sense about him…they would understand. She wanted to tell her story.

"Yeah," he agreed quietly, barely audible over the sound of the pouring rain outside.

"It can be quite seductive. It doesn’t affect the demons so much because they don’t feel emotions the way we do. The tales say the Sea was created from the tears of Aetulia. She had the most beautiful voice, which gave life and nourishment to a harsh and barren world. But her song was used to destroy Ormagoden - from him came the sun, and metal, everything. In her sorrow for her part in that, she cried until she vanished into dust. Now, it wasn't all bad, I guess - if it hadn't happened, we wouldn't have the world, or music, or anything, it would just be the First Ones, the twisted creatures that lived in the dark. No Titans, no music or people."

"Just the...like, the primordial chaos. All the stories on our world start off with something like that, too. Gotta say a giant metal fire-beast exploding and forming the world is the coolest one I've ever heard," Gerard said.

Ophelia turned her head a little and smiled. "Lita did send me over here to talk to you. She believes you now, of course, but she watches out for us. Who better to tell you the story of the Black Tears than someone who was there?"

"You? Brian made it seem like a death sentence," Gerard said, already impressed with her tale.

"It kinda was. In the first war, what they now call the Black Tear Rebellion, those who drank from the Sea gained power, but went insane. They were all killed by the demons, and that forest grew over the whole area."

Gerard grew thoughtful. "No wonder it’s called the Forest of the Dead. Like...there was that one tree I saw. Down in the roots, it looked like faces, white faces carved from stone...or maybe it really was bone."

"Heh. That, among other things. Anyway, the demon emperor managed to unseal the path to the Sea. My parents fought in the first war. It...It was their idea to drink the Tears. I've faced suspicion all my life." She paused and gather her courage. "It was after a great victory. I felt betrayed, in despair, I'd never be accepted despite all the fighting I'd done for my people. But foolishly, I kept secrets, letting myself be driven away rather than tell."

This was too much for Gerard. He moved in to embrace her. "It's okay, Ophelia. You're alright now, aren't you? I know what's it's like to be the odd one out. Have been all my life, really. All of us in the band, we never quite fit in."

She held on to him for a few moments, then moved away and continued her tale.

"And so I jumped into the Sea. There was this dark copy of me, full of all the hate and anger and despair I felt. I...she raised the Drowning Doom against Ironheade. I'll always be glad that they were defeated. Eddie killed the demon emperor and saved the real me from the Black Tears. But I still remember what she did."

“We’ve all done things we regret.”

“Mhm. So, well, yeah. That’s what happens if you go in the Sea of Black Tears. The end.”

Gerard thought this over. “Yeah, that sucks,” he decided. “I’ve spent enough time in my past overwhelmed by regret and anger. Those first couple of years with our band, I really messed myself up trying to forget. I was able to overcome that, and I never want to feel like that again.” 

They stood together for a while, just finding a quiet moment in their all-too-eventful lives.

_KRA-KA-THOOOOM_!

That was the most intense roar of thunder Gerard had ever heard. He’d swear he’d felt the vibration in his bones.

Ophelia was the first to spot them. Several troops of Gravediggers, and two Brides. And more were coming. The camp degenerated into chaos. At least, that’s what it looked like to Gerard. There was noise and yelling and lots of running around.

He tried his hardest to stay out of the way and avoid all the blood and steel flying around. He couldn’t help staring at one of the pot-bellied Ratguts, flinching as the creature vomited up a horde of rats that headed straight for… _shit_ , Ray!

Gerard bolted off to warn his friend, leaving the relative safety of the back of the Ironheade camp. “RAY!” he screamed, but the guitarist had already spotted the glowy-eyed rodents. He shook them off and performed a rather impressive running grab of an abandoned guitar from where it lay on the ground.

Familiar chords filled the air and Gerard quickly spotted Frank playing half behind one of the Headsplitter vehicles. Ray quickly took up the song, the notes of “This is How I Disappear” filling the air. The din was fierce, the air filled with the crackling of lightning, the noise of Razor Bows firing, and of metal hitting dirt and sometimes smacking into flesh.

Flurries of lightning bolts announced that Frank and Ray were successful in making more than just noise. And what could he do? He was just the singer. He could throw a punch as well as anyone, but when you were facing zombies…

Quick movement to his left caught his eye. Gerard whirled around to see…an old-fashioned baby carriage? The sheer incongruity stunned him for a few moments. Then the thing quivered, and a barrage of evil-looking dolls was raining down on him, and oh _fuck_ they had _teeth!_ He shrieked and flailed and ran for it, not even looking where he was going, just wanting to get _away_.

The wet drops on his nose distracted him. The Bride hadn’t been far behind the possessed pram. Gerard felt the cool rain from her accompanying storm cloud patter gently on the dirt. _Fuck fuck fuck_ these were the ones to stay from. He could see some of the warriors at the edges of the cloud caught in her lethargic effect.

He sprinted for safety. In a corner of his mind he mused that he wasn’t feeling any of the torpor associated with the Brides. The rest of it was filled with thoughts of _get the fuck away from the zombie in the wedding dress!_

His dash from danger was interrupted by a multitude of squeaking at his feet. He shrieked. Oh MOTHERFUCKER the _RATS_! He shook them off and fled from them and their now-gaunt keeper.

And straight into the arms of another Bride.  They twirled with the inertia of Gerard’s rush, stepping into half of a waltz. Her bony fingers latched onto his wrist.

He was gasping for breath. “You don’t have to do this. Could you please let me go? I don’t really have a problem with you, though it’s not cool that you’re trying to kill our friends and all…”

“Would you bury me, would you carry me to the end?” he heard her say in a quiet falsetto.

He was getting frantic now, as she dragged him towards the Sea of Black Tears. The first Bride joined her, taking Gerard’s other arm, as if he were merely escorting two charming young ladies to the ball. Oh god, what he would give to have Frank right here, but he was just Gerard and all he had was his words.

“…It can’t be healthy for you to remain so attached to a wedding dress, all women need to have self-worth and tying that solely into a romantic relationship is very mentally unhealthy and…” his desperate ramble was cut off as they shoved him into the Sea and held him under the surface. ~~~~

The water was pulling at him. The cool hands on his arms drifted away, as if releasing a paper boat of wishes into a stream.

Oh. That was interesting. It felt lighter than water, like a soft breeze, he could just fly away into the soft darkness…but then it was dragging him down, currents of black water and equally black emotions pulling him down into the depths. It was filling his mouth and trying to curl down his throat and into his heart as he floundered, reaching out for his friends.

Wouldn’t…wouldn’t they be there? They’d always been there, even before…before, during those awful times, oh, he hadn’t felt this fuzziness in a good few years, it had been so comforting then but now he knew he had to fight against it, he’d done it before, he’d quit the drugs, the drinking, he was free…where were they?

A calloused palm grabbed his. _YES_. The water had no hold on him. He’d defeated the sorrow and blankness before, and he’d do it again. Other hands fought the dark tendrils in the water and pulled him out from the deep.

Bob dragged Gerard into shallower water. All of them had run into the lake to retrieve their friend with no thought for the danger, but the drummer got there first. Three familiar sets of hands helped them both onto the shore. There was a snag when Frank tripped on a rough patch on the bottom, making them all fall backward into the Black Tears. The water was only about knee-deep at that point, so though they got wet, they were able to stagger free of the syrupy-feeling water with little difficulty.

Gerard shivered as his band huddled around him. He tried to take a slightly deeper breath and he choked, spitting out brackish black liquid. “Ugh.” It wasn’t even quite like water, feeling heavier, maybe like mercury or some shit.

“Dude, I thought you could swim,” Bob commented, the teasing words a contrast to his soft concerned tone.

Gerard glared weakly at him. Then he coughed, more dark mucus coming up. He kicked some of the shore’s sludge in the drummer’s direction.

“Fuck you, this ain’t a day at the beach,” he rasped after he was finished coughing up what felt like half his lungs.

“Fuckers, MOVE!” People scattrered in the face of Brian. No one would want to be between the fire-starter and his friends.

“Oh Christ they were _in the lake!?_ ” he exclaimed in disbelief when he saw the damp musicians. He shouldered his way into the huddle.

“Fucking hell, Gerard, you okay?” he asked him, hugging him tightly. Brian let him go only to hold onto his shoulders and peer worriedly into his face.

 “You look like crap, Gee,” his brother told him. “You…you haven’t looked this bad since…the time we came back from the first trip to Japan.”

“Yeah, well, it felt like it there.”

Brian went cold all over. “ _Shit_.”

 

 

Suffice to say, the band’s dip in the Sea did not go unnoticed.

“Who the fuck could’ve thought? They weren’t attacking us, they were keeping us busy! They herded him away and a couple of Brides grabbed him and dragged him in,” Brian growled.

Ophelia gaped. “ _What!?_ They’re not supposed to _do_ that!”

Brian hmmed. “But the Doomed have been running around on their own for a while. Could’ve learned some new tricks.”

“But that’s not what they do…” she repeated, sounding doubtful.

“And she’d know,” Lita confirmed.

Brian’s words had set the young swordswoman to thinking on the recent battle. “We…we got a lot of them, but most…most just retreated,” she realized.

“What they’re _supposed_ to do means shit, either way they apparently decided I needed a bath in the Black Tears,” Gerard spoke up hoarsely.

Lita whirled around at his words, the point of her halberd inches from Gerard’s chest. He made a tiny “meep!” and froze. She examined him critically. He wasn’t any paler than before, no glowing eyes. She relaxed marginally. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you,” she told him, face stern. “You guys aren’t too bad, I’d hate to have to kill you.”

 

Gerard had nightmares when he finally slept. Inky black swirled around him, he tried to fight it but it just kept pulling him down, creeping over skin that had paled to icy blue-white.

“ _We never wanted it to be this way_ ,” he heard the Bride whisper in his ear.

His own scream woke him up. It was gratifying to hear his own breath. He wasn’t underwater, drowning in despair.

Mikey blinked at him in the soft darkness of night. “You okay?”

Gerard sighed. “I guess. I had a dream…a nightmare, I was drowning and no one was there to pull me back.”

Mikey snuggled in to hug him. “As long as it doesn’t get like the Paramour again, I think we’ll make it through.”

Gerard hugged him back.

 

After the Black Tear incident, Lita insisted on getting back west as soon as possible. The newcomers seemed unaffected, but the war was still fresh in everyone’s memories. The master healer, the Kill Master, would be able to tell them if the Black Tears had truly taken them. He and his men had taken an oath not to harm others; the name was to discourage intruders.

"Well hey there beautiful," greeted Kill Master when he saw Lita. "What lovely trouble are you in this time?"

Ray did a double take when he heard the grouchy healer speak. He made a noise resembling a squeak.

"Ray, what's up?" Mikey whispered.

"Mikey. Does the...Kill Master, seriously, _that’s_ what they call him? Oh my god," he muttered. "Does he seem familiar to you?"

The skinny bassist squinted at the man they'd apparently needed to see, according to Lita. “Not really.”

“When we get back I’m making you listen to all my Mötorhead albums.”

“That’s cruel and unusual, you ass, and you already made me do that when I first started learning to play...something about unique technique, I still have flashbacks to that sometimes. So, what, he remind you of someone?” Mikey said, jerking his head towards where Lita and Kill Master were speaking.

“You could say that!” the guitarist hissed. “He looks exactly like Lemmy!”

“What?”

“Oh geez, I’ll explain later!” Ray said in a rush as they were urged forward by several Razor Girls.

The Kill Master pulled down his sunglasses and eyed them critically. “Don’t look like much, do they? Thought you were taking care of those depressin’ ones Lita, you wanna keep this lot as pets or something?”

“No. They said they’re not of the Drowning Doom. They’re from Eddie’s world. Brian knows them, says they’re a _band_. One of your men did check them earlier, but that was before they ended up taking a dip in the Sea.”

The Kill Master gave a disbelieving snort. “I’ll believe it when I see it. An’ you want me to check they ain’t Drowned in disguise, izzat it? Not a very good cover they got there, if they are. But alrigh’ then."

The healer cracked his knuckles and began to play a heavy melody on the bass in front of him.

The five band members felt an odd sensation sweep through them as the bassline echoed through their bodies.

The master healer played for just a couple of minutes.

"No need to worry that pretty head. They're as human as any one of us. Maybe a little bit wonky, but it's the same sorta thing I get offa Brian. They're definitely not one of those packs of gloomy 'mothers you're still getting out east."

Lita nodded, and Ophelia let out a small sigh of relief.

"You were right," she told the other woman with a small smile of encouragement.

"Good. Definitely didn't want to be wrong about this kinda thing." Ophelia continued a little hesitantly. “I kinda like them. Their music’s pretty good.” 

Meanwhile, Mikey had wandered off without anyone noticing, as he does. Hell, they were on top of a fucking mountain and surrounded by an army, not like he could go far.

Then he saw something he recognized in this fucked up hardcore fantasy world: a bass guitar.

He didn't even think if it might possibly be booby-trapped or whatever, which was entirely possible with how things were here. Here was an instrument, and he knew how to play it. They were all completely out of their depth, and he'd find what comfort he could in little bits of familiarity. Finding Brian had settled them to no end. Brian would help, he'd take care of things.

He settled the strap over his head, and started strumming out the notes to "Disenchanted.”

He didn’t notice the slight glow around him. But someone did.

"Oy! What're you doing there?" a gruff voice yelled.

"Oh my god, we fucking told you, we're a band! Fucking sorry we weren’t able to pack our instruments before our SURPRISE TRIP INTO ANOTHER REALM. Gimme back that goddamn guitar and I'll fucking show you what we can do!" Frank yelled.

The healing music of the bass flowed over them and to the others nearby.

"Wow," Gerard said in quiet awe, and pride of his brother. Whatever he was doing, they felt better. Not as tired, less frustrated.

“Not bad,” said Kill Master.

"Well then," Ophelia said. "I told you. The Doom can't play, they're fucking dead." She cast a sidelong glance at Lita. "Oh, don't you bring it up. You know very well I wasn't. Guess there really is a difference."

Eddie looked thoughtfully at them. "Well, let's get you guys some guitars."

Ray critically examined the instrument he was given. There hadn’t been time for that when they were attacked by the Sea of Black Tears. Looked standard, of the common shape. He picked at the strings. They rang out clearly, not tinny at all like he'd expected. "No need for amps, huh? Cool."

He started off with one of the riffs on "Mama" and head-banged in time, skipping to the solo on "I'm Not Okay" and then segued into Metallica. He closed his eyes and rocked out.

When he was done with the impromptu audition, Eddie was staring at him. The ground around Ray was marked with scorch-marks and soot.

Gerard looked like an anime character, his eyes were so wide.

"Wow. Ray. What. There was lightning. LIGHTNING that you summoned from the heavens oh my god, and then you were at the center of a meteor shower, and then the meteors turned into firebirds that EXPLODED!”

Suffice to say, after that they had a lot more freedom.

 

 

Gerard came across Mikey cooing over something cupped in his hands. He was feeling a lot more at ease once he got into casual clothes.

"What you got there, Mikes?"

His brother turned to face him at the question, looking slightly startled. His face went a little sheepish. He opened his hands to reveal a spider. A big spider.

"Those other bass-playing dudes get guitar strings from these little guys, isn't that cool, Gee? They told me not to disturb the spiders, but seriously, this one must've crawled off on its own. I found her huddled behind my bass." Well, it wasn't exactly his, but he had claimed it as his own, and since he had shown a clear proficiency with it, it's not like the Thunderhogs could take it away.

Gerard examined the spider. It was approximately tarantula-sized, but smooth rather than fuzzy. Unlike the shiny chrome spiders he'd seen by the Kill Master's abode, this one was a matte black. It's abdomen had a little skull-like pattern in silvery chrome.

"Huh. Must be a mutant."

"They won't even miss her, the other spiders probably thought she was a freak," Mikey cooed over the Metal Spider. "But now you can live with me," he smiled.

"Better not let Frank see her," was all his brother said at this oddly adorable display.

"Her name is Kitty," Mikey decided, still preoccupied with his new pet.

 

With Mikey in possession of a bass they could finally set up a practice session. They’d been transported here in the middle of the tour and they all felt wrong not doing anything with music. And hey, you never knew with magic, they better not get rusty just in case they were returned to Earth as suddenly as they’d arrived here. Frank and Ray weren’t giving up the guitars they’d grabbed when the Doom first attacked. They kept losing their tuning, but it was better than nothing.

Even Bob had cobbled together a set of drums. They’d been passing through the jungle when they’d spotted the plants. There had been a glint of tarnished-looking brass visible in the shade under a grove of young trees. Drum kits _grew_ right out of the ground, cymbals and all! The Zaulia had helped harvest and shape the new set, mainly the one named Yula. The others were mystified as to why since the warrior women tended to keep to themselves. It probably had to do with the time Yula had carried off their drummer, the nape of his coat held delicately in the teeth of her Metal Beast like he was a kitten. She’d returned him the next morning in the same manner, Bob looking somewhat dazed but quite satisfied. Yula herself was quite pleased.

“Robert is quite talented,” was all she’d said. They all made noises of agreement. Best drummer they’d ever had, definitely.

They’d set up in a clearing just outside the walls of Bladehenge, the main human settlement. Gerard could tell everyone was feeling better with their hands on instruments again. There would always be time later on for exploring; that giant guitar statue across the plain looked pretty cool. It was kinda like living inside an album cover.

He hummed and warbled, warming up his voice while his friends played some experimental chords and fills.

They just jammed for a while, playing verses from Three Cheers, adjusting to the new instruments. It wasn't the best, but it didn't suck either.

"Hey, let's try Black Parade," Gerard called to the rest of them.

Bob counted them in.

The song felt kind of...raw. With no piano the intro was a little less gentle, but still powerful. It was an odd feeling, playing their music in a land that had never seen it before. But they were a band, _this_ was what they did. In an unfamiliar world, they could at least have that much.

When they'd finished a shimmering wave of light blue energy snapped out from in front of them and sped off into the distance. The grasses around them didn’t even ripple.

"What the hell was that!?" Bob exclaimed, for it was after the last boom of the drums that the energy had raced out from their position.

"I don't know," Frank said. "But I don't think Lita would be happy about it."

 

 

Deep below the surface, in a realm of magma and fiery stone, the Guardian of Metal took note of a sound. It was a single low note reverberating through the ground, so low that no one else would notice it. No human would, anyway.

Oh, well now. That was certainly intriguing. A corner of his mouth quirked into a smile. Those humans certainly kept things interesting.

 

About a week after their arrival, they went to the Screaming Wall. The Kill Master had given them the all clear, and as they didn’t have much better to do, the members of My Chemical Romance stayed with Lita’s troop. It’s not like any of them were exactly eager to go gallivanting into a strange realm where they didn’t know anyone, the landscape and the wildlife were quite hostile, and oh yeah, they didn’t really have any survival skills to speak of.

The Wall was a massive narrow cliff that jutted out into the ocean. Getting to it could be hazardous, as the only path to the bottom went around an active volcano. But this volcano tended to ooze lava rather than explode violently. As long as you watched for the lava flows, you’d be fine.

_SCREEEEEEEEEEEKKKK!_

“Ah shit, no wonder they call it the Screaming Wall,” Gerard complained as he waiting for the ringing in his ears to subside. It was composed entirely of speakers and amplifiers, which Ironheade quarried directly from the cliff face. It went off periodically, perhaps triggered by seismic activity from the neighboring volcano.

“Indeed,” said Lita with a hint of a grin. “Now, the path is fairly narrow where it ends by the ocean, so you’d better stay around here while we harvest new amps. Try not to get attacked by gulls.”

Naturally, Frank immediately went to investigate the large empty nests made out of cables clustered near the cliff edges, not far from the path. Ray tried to keep him from climbing into them.

Bob was looking out over the ocean, wondering if he could spot some of those drum-kit plants from up here. They only grew in the jungle and by the beach, apparently. The Zaulia had been great in helping him assemble one, but some of the drums didn’t sound quite right yet. 

Then he saw a large winged shape swoop over the sea and snatch a sizeable fish right out of the water.

“Guys, look!”

The large bird turned out to be some sort of eagle, but it was oddly shaped – more angular than it should be around the head, and the wings were strangely curved on the leading edge, with squared-off feathers.

“Aw shit, a robot eagle, that’s fucking awesome!” Bob exclaimed. He squinted at it. “Pretty sure I saw that on an album cover somewhere.” 

“Hey, you think they nest around here?” Gerard wondered. He wandered off to look for some.

What happened next took mere seconds.

He knew birds of prey liked to nest in high places. Some of the taller trees that grew off the beach below were nearly even with the path they were on. He wasn't that far from the edge when the Screaming Wall went off, sending a pressure wave across the bay and down the cliffs.

Maybe it was the vibrations or the new volcanic rock was too fragile, but suffice to say, the edge crumbled away, rocks skittering to the sandy coast below. He barely had time to scream before he dropped like - well, a rock.

His friends dashed over to the edge, several members of Ironheade running ahead to make sure the footing was solid. Apparently only the edge had been covered by brittle new rock.

The cliff side was irregular and bumpy, and scraggly shrubs made of cables grew out from the cliff wall, hiding what was below. They knew the beach was a good hundred feet below them, at least.

They gaped for a moment, and then Frank was running down the path to the beach.

Brian's heart twisted when he saw Gerard lying on the beach, his white hair a beacon on the black sand. Frank and the others ran up to him.

"Oh my god, he's breathing, thank fuck. He doesn't look smashed to pieces, but who the fuck knows maybe he got like internal bleeding or something. I don't know what falling off a cliff would do! Fuck, is one of those Thunderhog guys around?" Frank rambled.

Gerard frowned and opened his eyes. "Ow. What happened?"

Bob stared. "You fell off the cliff," he said deliberately.

Gerard wiggled his fingers. "Um. Kinda feels like it, but I don't think anything's broken?" His clothes sported several rips, but there was no sign of blood.

He sat up and Ray's eyes widened. "Umm, Gee, there's something on you. And it ain't sand."

"Oh my god," he heard Mikey say.

Everyone staring at him now. He'd been stared at before but getting it from his friends was unusual. Frank's eyes were wide.

He sat up, feeling a little bruised but not too bad for having gone over a cliff, but...

His friends hovered around him, Brian closest of all.

"You okay Gee? No homicidal thoughts?" he asked.

"What? No. No! The hell just happened?"

"You went over the cliff, and now you've got claws, and I think wings too."

"WHAT!" Gerard looked up at him, eyes wide in shock. Then he looked down. He stared in horror at the matte black covering his hands. This darkness was softer than any gloves he'd ever worn, absorbing more light than any black he'd ever seen. The shadows traveled up his arms, ending in tendrils that curled by his elbows. It seemed as close to his skin as tattoos were to Frank's, but at the same time it was over his skin and not in it. He flexed his hands and it felt like he wasn't wearing anything at all, just a hint of a silky whisper on his skin.

_Hey, pants made of this would be really comfy_ , came the unbidden ridiculous thought.

"Gah." The fingers of the shadowy gloves ended in neat, slightly curved talons. Good for digging into things, he thought vaguely. Rock maybe. And flesh.

The same soft blackness flowed around Gerard as he stood shakily. Fans of black poured down from his shoulders, making a sort of translucent cape that shifted restlessly in an intangible wind as he watched. He startled, making a couple of comical aborted half-turns, almost like a dog chasing his tail, trying to catch the delicate material.

Meanwhile, Lita had readied her halberd at the first swish of the black wings.

The cape flared into wings, taking on a more bird-like shape as her blade swung within slashing distance. Ray flung out a hand by reflex, and a translucent silvery shield sprang up around them, shutting Ironheade out. A few people tried to bash at it, but the light just condensed a little where they’d hit, and remained solid.

Gerard looked a lot like a startled magpie, Mikey mused in the part of his mind that wasn’t freaking out.

Brian swallowed. "Oh no."

"I thought you said you weren't of the Doom," she hissed.

Gerard looked up, fear evident in his eyes. "Wha....I don't know what happened. Oh my god, what is this stuff?!" he tried to peel off the gloves, but his fingers just skated over it like it was too slick to touch. He tried scraping it off on a rock, but the claws just left deep gouges in the stone.

“Lita, no, please!” Brian begged. “I don’t know what happened either, but there’s no way he’s evil! You know the Doom better than I do, even, if there’d been anything in Gerard, something would’ve shown up before now.”

Brian grabbed Gerard’s head, staring into his eyes. The singer kept still, mouth open in surprise. Brilliant sparks flickered in steely blue eyes, fierce and protective. Gerard’s knees went a little wobbly. 

“Same color. Not possessed as far as I can tell. Nothing’s glowing,” Brian informed the queen of the humans. His face grew cold. His hand lingered on Gerard’s shoulder. Tiny blue-white sparks glinted around his fingertips. He was furious. “Now stand down. If anybody’s gonna take care of them, it’ll be _me_.”

Gerard tried to calm himself. He took several deep breaths. Judging by how the rest of Ironheade was lowering their weapons and backing off, Brian had things well in hand. That helped a lot more than any deep breathing. The wings faded into tatters and then disappeared entirely. The ‘gloves’ dissolved too.

“Guys. Seriously. What the hell just happened?” the shaken singer asked.

“You fell off a cliff,” Bob informed him.

Gerard looked up at the sheer rocky slope above them. “Yeah, think I got that, thanks,” he replied dryly.

“Guess your dunking in that lake of emo left something behind after all,” said Ray, voice quavering a little from shock.   

The singer glared at him halfheartedly for the “emo” crack. He was still hanging off of Brian and didn’t want to let go just yet. But he couldn’t really argue, it was _true_.

 

 

Gerard wasn’t the only one. Just the first. Shadows and wings and force fields, oh my.

 

 

My Chemical Romance was feeling good. They and the accompanying Ironheade contingent was taking a rest on their way to Death’s Clutch, where apparently there was a stage waiting for them. They were camping at the dry sandy fields of Battersmith located right outside Lionwhyte’s former palace. The enormous anvil of the gods with glowing red eyes watched sullenly over the gate to the Cleave. Practice had gone well, and it was always amazingly cool to see the effects their songs left on the world around them.

Music as spells, it wasn't that farfetched, Gerard mused. In stories words were often used to create magical effects. Magic usually had some sort of rhythm or pattern to its channeling, and music was certainly a pattern. Add words to it, and there you go. Music was the most powerful kind of magic of all. Enough that even in the normal world, it had clear physical and mental effects. He’d seen that, _felt_ it, too many times not to know.

Gerard looked at the shimmering fence in front of them. It formed a semicircle, meeting the rocky wall behind their practice area. It was elaborate wrought iron, a lot like the cemeteries he'd sometimes haunted as a kid (there was a joke hiding in that thought somewhere), though it was translucent and shone faintly blue.

The alarm rang out as the bars faded away.

"Demons coming in from the desert!"

They saw Brian running with the rest of Ironheade, but he swerved and ran over to the band instead.

"Hey Gee," he greeted with a sharp grin. "Think you can play ‘Venom’ for me?"

"Uh sure?"

"Need any more guys on the field?" Frank asked, perching on the side of the speaker stack. For someone afraid of spiders, he sure liked hanging around like one whenever possible.

"Nah, there aren't many, we can handle ‘em, easy," Brian replied. "I just always wanted to have a fight with my own soundtrack!" he yelled back to them as he ran off.

His motorcycle was left standing listlessly on the other side of the field from the battle.

 

Brian laughed gleefully as the flames engulfed the spindly nuns like so many scarecrows made of sticks. (“ _It ain't the mark or the scar that makes you one_ ,” he heard in the background). Okay, so it was kinda personal. No one on their side was complaining. He punched and dove and used just about every dirty fighting trick he knew (certainly not EVERY single one, because some would just be gross to use on the demons).

He was monetarily distracted by the sight of a stray Skull Raker that had managed to get a lucky shot with its flail-shaped head to the rock wall behind his band. Loose rock went everywhere, but Ray’s ability to create force-fields kept them safe and they hardly missed a beat. The large demon was soon taken down by a squad of Razor Girls and the spiky head rolled away from the body, the malevolent glow in its eyes extinguished.

Seeing they had the situation in hand, Brian snatched one of the Dominatrix’s spears, ignited it, and threw it back at their burly Pinboy slave. He cackled as the burly demon exploded messily. Oh, that was a good one.

He'd killed demons before of course, but it was just so much more FUN with his band playing... “ _And say, what I wanna say, tell me I'm an angel,_ ” oh it was House of Wolves now, _awesome_. Perfect. He let out a howl. He was the baddest motherfucker of all! For a second he considered dancing (well, stomping triumphantly) on the demon corpses, but dismissed the idea almost instantly. He liked these boots. He flicked demon gore off his vest and idly watched the bits of flesh char and smoke.

Lita was staring at him. Well, so were the guys, but she was closer.

“What?”

“You’re not usually so…flame-y?” she said somewhat hesitantly. He’d taken out nearly a dozen of the demons all by himself. It had been pretty terrifying to see. 

Brian looked at the yellow-white fire that was burning merrily along his arms. Most times, it was limited to around his hands. He took several deep breaths to calm himself. He focused, and the flames went out.

He couldn’t help grinning at her. “I was feeling inspired.”

“Well,” she said grudgingly. “These demons seemed especially easy to beat. I think the music helped.”

“Those boys do great work,” Brian said proudly.

“Wow, did ya see that Gee, Brian was awesome!” Mikey crowed as he tried to climb his brother like a tree. As Gerard made for a rather wobbly tree, he tried clambering on Ray and met with more success.

“He was on firrrrrree! Literally!” He giggled into Ray’s hair.

Frank stared at the oddly energetic bassist. “Mikeyway, what are you on? Shit, it’s not some more crazy guitar magic, is it?”

“Nooo, we practiced those songs earlier, right? It was only just now I got this rush of energy, starting during the demon attack.”

Bob looked thoughtful. “That’s it then. You know how the spells are a little different with enemies nearby? And the battle was over real quick, even with all the demons there, like they were weaker. I think that’s his thing,” he said, wiggling his fingers to indicate mystical powers.

“Oooo,” Gerard exclaimed, “like, he restores energy when he heals, but can also take energy from opponents!”

“Brian!” Mikey exclaimed enthusiastically when he saw him nearing their spot by the rock wall. He was off like a shot, tackling him gleefully.

“Ow!” said Brian. Mixed with the dull thud of landing on the hard stony ground was a sharper sensation, like a static shock or pins and needles. He blinked up at a smiling Mikeyway. Well, at least those teeth were more pleasant than a Battle Nun’s. Still slightly frightening though. Those Ways were adorable, but when grinning like that…

“Jesus Christ, Mikey, did you switch brains with Frank or something?”

“Nope! It’s magic!” he wiggled his fingers at their fire-starting manager. Then he climbed off Brian’s chest and helped him up.

Brian brushed off the dust and realized he felt…better. He always felt a little achy generating and using that much fire, but now he felt pretty rejuvenated. He raised his eyebrow at the bassist.

“That’s you then?”

The rest of the band had reached them.

“Yep,” Gerard said proudly. “He’s got some distance life force leeching thing going on.”

“That's cool for us and everything, but how do we get rid of that extra energy? Hyper Mikey is kind of terrifying

At some point during their conversation, Mikey had apparently decided that climbing the cliffs was a great idea.

“How the hell did you get up there?” Ray called up to the bassist, sounding astounded at the feat.

“No idea!” Mikey said cheerfully from the top of the nearly sheer cliff. Like a cat, he’d managed to climb up, but now he couldn’t get down. It wasn’t too high, as far as cliffs went, but high enough that they wouldn’t want to risk him jumping down.

Brian just shook his head. Great, now the bassist was stuck like a cat up a tree. He stood a little further back from the rest of the guys, who were anxiously waiting at the bottom of the outcropping. He watched Gerard for a few moments, marveling at how he always managed to find the tightest jeans.

“Frank!” he heard Ray exclaim, and turned to find the guitarist climbing up the side of the cliff to try and rescue his friend.

Brian rubbed his face in exasperation. When he dared to look again, he saw Frank was somehow clinging to the nearly sheer side of the cliff.

“Great, now we’ve got a Spider-Frank,” he heard Bob mutter. “My drums will never be safe from him again.”

Soon enough, Frank had scrambled up and was squeezing Mikey tight in a hug.

“Okay, now what, you geniuses?” Brian yelled up at them.

Frank grinned and shoved Mikey off the edge.

Gerard shrieked. Ray yelped and a shimmering net of force caught him mere feet from the ground.

Mikey beamed and climbed on Ray again. “I knew you could do it!” He crowed.

Well, they were almost to Death’s Clutch. Surely he’d be back to normal after a real show.

 

 

"So you're the leader, are ya?" said a gravelly voice. Most members of Ironheade tended to let them be, though a few did venture to talk to them, mostly about music.

Gerard looked up from the paper, surprised and a little terrified to see the Baron on their side of the camp. He snapped the sketchbook shut, fervently hoping the other man hadn’t seen the drawing of Brian he’d been working on. It was a rather ferocious (and shirtless) rendition of the man clad in leather and flames and standing on a bed of spiky demon skulls.

Glimpses from across the camp and Brian’s stories couldn’t quite prepare you for a personal encounter with the leader of the Fire Barons. He cut an intimidating figure in that black leather ensemble. He was shirtless under the open silver-studded vest, multiple chains hanging off his belt. Gerard was rather jealous of his spiked fingerless gauntlets.

 “Um, well, not really. I just sing,” he stammered out.

"You don't look like much."

Gerard just shrugged. Not like that was a lie.

"Obviously you gotta be a whole lotta something. Never seen Brian so...settled,” he went on. He took a seat.

“We’ve known him for years. He’s done a lot for us,” was all Gerard said.

“Ya know, there were a bunch of times before you came along when he’d take off on his own. Seemed like he was looking for something. Then you lot came along, and it seems like he’s found it. I really hope you can hold on to it.” He leaned in. “He’s a great kisser, ya know,” he whispered, and laughed at Gerard’s scandalized look. “Doubt he’d punch _you_ in the kidneys afterward, though. Maybe I’d have done better if I’d given him a nice portrait,” he said with a grin, tapping the sketchbook. “That’s exactly how he looks when he’s in the middle of one of his infernos. He’s not the only one getting hot, eh?”

And with that, he left, jauntily spinning a pair of handcuffs on an index finger. Gerard was left gaping at his retreating back.

 

 

Eddie showed up not long after the demons had come by. He’d seen them heading towards Battersmith, but with the help of My Chemical Romance, Ironheade had defeated them easily.

Eddie stood for a moment, observing. They were handling things pretty damn well without him. As they should. He saw Brian smoldering slightly off to the site, looking smugly at the burned carcasses of the demons. Honestly, the guy scared him a little. The Baron was intimidating, sure, but Brian was something else.

He shifted his gaze to the band. Ophelia had filled him in on the new arrivals. He'd been very wary at first, but she and Lita had reassured him that they were on the level.

He heard a soft growl as he walked up.

"God damnit, this has to be the fucking hundredth time I've had to tune or re-string this thing!" the shorter musician grumbled.

The other guitarist didn't look happy either. "Happens after every single time we play, even my first guitar wasn't this shitty," complained the taller, curly-haired one.

"Really?" Eddie said. "Never had any major issues with mine. Can I take a look?"

"You must be Eddie. We heard all about you from Lita," said the shorter man. "Be my guest."

"I'm Ray," the other man introduced himself. "This little shit is Frank."

Eddie nodded in acknowledgement, and looked over their guitars.

"Well, I don't see anything up, and I’m one of the best guitar techs around. I know a guy that can help, if you don't mind taking a trip."

 

 

They all watched in trepidation as the steel door opened, letting vapors roll out and revealing a hellish orange glow from within the large shed adorned with a winged chrome skull and an oversized engine on top. They’d seen it in the distance when they were at Battersmith and wondered at its purpose. Well, now they’d find out.

"Eddie," Ray asked flatly. "What the fuck is that, and why are we going inside it?"

The roadie gave them a grin. "That's a Motor Forge. Marks the path to the Guardian of Metal. It's such a trip, it’s awesome, I promise."

Frank gave him a sideways look.

It was a roller-coaster ride down. The tunnel sloped sharply, strange runic etchings on the walls glowing yellow-orange to illuminate the path.

"Oh FUCK are we heading for the center of the earth?!" Frank screamed as the car roared downward.

Then finally they screeched out into a huge open chamber lit by a yellow-orange glow. The car squealed to a stop by a cliff, but with plenty of room to spare.

The band members were all breathing hard. "Holy shit, and I thought it was a bad idea letting Gee drive the van. Oh my god, that was like, ten times worse," Frank moaned, clinging to Ray.

They cautiously got out of the car and looked around. The air was very warm, just on the edge of too hot.

"Wow." They were at the center of the earth, or a reasonable approximation. The light came from the magma a couple hundred feet below. Huge shadowy figures could be vaguely seen in the distance, standing in the middle of the lava and hammering away at....whatever inner-earth dwelling giants made on giant anvils.

A joyful laugh echoed around them.

A thick splashing sound came from closer to the edge of the cliff. They turned just in time to see a column of magma solidify into dark rock, then split apart to reveal...

Frank made a noise. "Um, is that...?" he whispered to Ray.

"I don't think so, last I checked he wasn't living miles beneath the planet's surface," Ray told him snarkily.

"Heh, I was wondering when you'd be showing up," said the Guardian. “Don’t really look like much, though,” he said thoughtfully, examining them as he walked a half-circle around them.

“Err, well, we left our jackets upstairs,” Ray stammered.

"Mmm, not bad," suddenly came from behind Frank and he startled, clutching at his guitar. The Guardian was quicker though, and had snatched it from his hands, leaving Frank’s fingers to clench on empty air.

He looked at it critically. “Could be better, though,” he said, and tossed the two guitars over the edge…wait, TWO?! When had he gotten Ray’s!? He jerked in surprise and frantically felt for his instrument, but it also had been grabbed by the odd being.

“What the hell?” was all he could say, still somewhat stunned by the Guardian’s ( _Ozzy’s?! what no it isn’t_ his mind reminded him) speed and by the loss of his guitar.

Even Eddie was stumped. “Okay, he never did that with me,” he said, looking puzzled.

“Oh quit yer whining,” said the supernatural keeper of ancient secrets. “Here you are, better than new,” he declared, pulling out an electric guitar from behind his back and depositing it in Ray’s arms.

The tall guitarist blinked. It looked pretty much the same, but it felt a little different. It was oddly warm, gleaming in the dim volcanic light. He played a few notes. They rang out clear and strong, creating bluish sparks that hung briefly in the hot thick air like fireflies.

“Finally got it to keep the tuning,” Ray murmured. The instrument felt comfortable in a way that it hadn’t before.

Frank was making soft happy noises over his own bone-white guitar.

“You boys needed something with more punch than those old things you came in with,” the Guardian informed them.

The three of them looked up, startled. “Do you know why we’re here? Can we get back home?” Frank asked.

“Pfft, naah! I ain’t psychic. Keeper of timeless secrets, remember, not keeper of the bloody future. Your band has been causing quite a stir though, I must say.”

Frank tried to hide his disappointment. Would’ve been nice to know what their epic quest was supposed to be.

“Aww, cheer up now! All of you boys are doing quite well!” he commended the guitarists, materializing in-between Frank and Ray and clapping a hand on their backs. “Honestly, you’re already better at it than that big lug over there,” he told them in a stage whisper, jerking his head towards Eddie.

They couldn’t help smiling a little at that.

“Just make good use of those guitars. Follow the music, and you’ll be alright,” advised the Guardian of Metal, waving away their shy thanks. “Oh! I almost forgot,” he exclaimed just as they were about to climb back into the car, and tossed a small, dark object in their direction. Frank caught it and found it to be a pocket watch in elegant shiny black enamel with a silver chain.

“Give that to yer drummer. He’ll find it useful.”

 

 

Bob wasn’t hiding. He was taking some well-deserved time for himself, and it just happened to be in this nice little grove of trees. Their lead singer could grow wings, they were being followed (but _not attacked_ , which was worse) by zombies…anyone would be a bit stressed out. Playing helped, but when the audience at the first stage show (which was in the middle of the fucking mountains, what the hell) was made up of the aforementioned revenants…well.

Bob lit a cigarette and inhaled. And he’d thought being on tour back home was crazy. The healer had given them the all-clear, they weren't any kind of malevolent secret demons or whatever. Their music was exactly the opposite of evil. It was inspiring and beautiful and he knew, just after seeing the first few concerts they'd done back home with the new songs, that people would go out and create, go and do their damnedest to live their life to the fullest.

But…some of the looks he was getting. That they all were, even Brian now and then, just for being associated with them. Or maybe that was because Brian was pretty freaky in his own right; apparently he was getting a lot more flashy with throwing around the fire since the band had arrived.

The members of Ironheade were pretty good about hiding it, but Bob still managed to catch the suspicious glances, the occasional twitches of fear when they were practicing. (Hey, being stuck in another world was no excuse to get rusty). His irritation was ameliorated somewhat by the Guardian of Metal’s gift. He’d left the thing on his kit after practice one day, and had come back to find that the entire set up had vanished. After some fiddling, he’d discovered that the pocket-watch became a perfectly set up drum kit when opened and dropped to the ground.

He heard a rustle as a small group drifted nearby, not even registering his presence.

“I know the Kill Master knows his shit, but those guys still gimme the creeps."

"Yeah. That pale one with the white hair, look at him, he even has _wings_ , just like Drowned Ophelia."

"Hey, I kinda really like their music, actually.”

“I actually talked to him, ya know,” one of the girls spoke up. “He’s not so bad. Asked me what things were like, fighting the Doom and the demons.” She went on more boldly. “They say the Drowning Doom were like, ghosts, zombies, whatever. But he asked me, wasn’t it was all our parents fighting in that first rebellion? And he’s right, isn’t he?"

This uncomfortable truth made the rest of them go silent. 

Bob had had enough. If they were so preoccupied with talking shit about his band that they couldn't even see him, that was their problem. He should tell the guys.

"Guys, you oughta hear what people are saying about us."

The rest of the band looked around the clearing.

"Bob?"

"I'm right here."

"Come on, did you suddenly learn how to throw your voice or something?"

"No," said the drummer irritably.

Moments later the entire band startled as Bob appeared out of thin air in front of them.

"Bob," said Frank observantly.

"You were invisible," Mikey marveled.

 

 

After Death’s Clutch they traveled quickly through the jungle. The Forest of the Dead was just as creepy as they remembered, with its bare-branched trees and filmy cobwebs, and scattered graveyards and gallows. The persistent cloud cover cast a permanent gloom over the place. Oddly, putting their uniforms back on made them feel better. They were warmer now, at least.

They had barely entered the Dry Ice Mines (which was actually more of a quarry) when they were attacked. The Drowning Doom had never assaulted The Black Parade until now. This time, they were more like classic horror-movie zombies. They looked much more decayed, grayish bone showing through in places, flesh torn and seeping darkness.

Mikey ran from the Frightwig-possessed Razor Girl. His bass was so, so close. The Thunderhogs were around, sure, but if the rest of his friends had to be mixed up in this, then he'd be the one doing the healing. Of course it helped that his playing drained their enemies as much as it fortified their allies.

There was a sharp pain in his back. Mikey stumbled, wavering but quickly regaining his footing on the rocky ground. His side throbbed a little, slowing him down slightly, but he still made good headway. He grabbed his bass and started in, threading the low thrum through Bob's stun-force drumbeats and making the guitarist’s lightning that much more powerful.

It was over pretty quickly. The group that had attacked was small. With a couple of well-timed riffs by Frank, it was done.

Mikey joined his friends in the huddle they'd formed after the battle.

Gerard made a noise that greatly resembled his complaints when they were filming the video for "Ghost of You." Namely, when they'd been getting up to Take Nine of Mikey’s death scene.

"Gee, what's the matter?" he worriedly asked his brother. "We're all fine. I ran for my bass the minute the fighting started."

"Erm," Frank said haltingly. "Not that fine. You've got an arrow in your back."

Mikey awkwardly felt around. "Oh." It was a little wet around the shaft, and that was it. He tugged at it. It took a little contorting, but he pulled it out over the loud complaints of his brother.

"Huh." He examined the dark red slickness on the bolt. He shrugged. "Doesn't even hurt," he said thoughtfully.

Gerard gaped.

"Guess I better get it looked at," Mikey conceded, taking off his jacket.

Logically, there should've been something. Blood, a gaping wound. Frank poked Mikey and then rucked up his t-shirt. There was nothing there but smooth pale skin and a red spot of irritation where the arrow had hit. He shook out the jacket, which didn’t have so much as a stray thread where the bolt had gone in.

“No point when there’s nothing to see,” Frank said quietly.

They just looked at each other, thinking of what Brian had told them just yesterday.

It had taken Brian a few weeks to actually notice what was off. To be fair, they’d been busy. The guys had gotten their own instruments, and made good use of them in a few skirmishes. MCR going into battle against demons and zombies, now that was something that had to be seen to be believed.

Still, they were coping about as well could be expected. They were a bunch of geeks, really, so they probably thought they just had to finish some quest and they’d find a path home. Brian wasn’t quite so optimistic, but he couldn’t help holding on to the hope that they were right. If anyone could do it, it would be them.

Brian stared at Gerard, suddenly feeling something was out of place, but he couldn't tell what. He looked after all the guys of course, but it was Gerard that held most of Brian's attention lately. Maybe it was the wings. But aside from that fantastic sight, there was something else niggling at the edge of his mind.

As a troop of Razor Girls walked by, chatting animatedly, their hair perfectly flipped and feathered (Brian still had no idea how they did it), the realization of exactly what was off hit him like a punch to the head. 

It had been three weeks now since they’d arrived, and Gerard’s hair was still white as snow. Of course, he’d been keeping it up on tour so far, but here? Hair dye was one of the things that DIDN’T grow on trees.

He tried to be subtle about it.

“Noticed anything unusual with you lately?” he asked the singer.

“Aside from being stuck in an insane yet completely awesome heavy metal fantasy world? Nooo,” he drawled, still sketching a fierce portrait of Bob riding a Lazer Panther. Bob was looking on and appeared to approve of the drawing very much.

“Gerard. There _are_ mirrors here.”

“And?”

Brian gave up. “Your hair. It’s been weeks since you got here, and there’s no sign of your roots.”

“Huh?” Gerard squinted at him in confusion. Mikey, who was coaxing Kitty into making guitar strings, looked up and stared at his brother’s head, frowning.

“He’s right,” he concluded.

“What?” Gerard said, bewildered.

“It’s as white as the day you bleached it, which I definitely know wasn’t yesterday,” Mikey said. “But that’s what it looks like.”

Brian could practically see Gerard thinking. “And before you ask, it’s not us. I’ve had to do all those little things like shaving, but neither you or Frank or any of the guys need so much as a trim, even after all this time.”

“Great, another mark for the freak column,” Bob muttered.

 

 

Gerard climbed onto the stage at the other end of the quarry. Wisps of dry ice fog curled around his feet.

"Wow." He tapped the mic at center stage. It was live. Frank and Ray had drifted to their usual places by instinct.

"It's for us," he realized. "Brian said they'd found a few of these already, scattered all over, like they were waiting for something."

“There was that one at Death’s Clutch,” Frank mused. “Didn’t really believe him about these until I saw this one.”

“They've been waiting for us all this time. We...we really are the Black Parade, at least for them.”

“That last time, it wasn’t so much a battle as a show. They didn't just vanish like the others, there were these flashes of light...they’re not zombies, not really, more like ghosts? Maybe it really was the same people coming back,” Mikey said thoughtfully.

“We have to do this. That whole area got tainted after the war, maybe if we can help ease the pain that made it like that, actually help them move on, it...” Gerard swallowed.

He took a deep breath, voice on the verge of breaking. "Fuck. This is too fucking much. Dammit, I know our fans love us and I've always wanted to save lives, you guys know that, but we're actually seeing it happen here.”

“We’re half reapers, half exorcists,” spoke Bob.

“But let's hurry. Sure the powers are cool, but... What if we get back and we stay...like this? We're only human, really, what if...I don't want to get used to it. I mean, yeah, it’s cool to think about, but it's not supposed to happen, not really, we don't belong here.”

"God yeah," Brian agreed. "I held on alright, but then you guys showed up and...I want to go home as much as you do. I missed you guys, I miss having my life where zombies don't walk the earth, the moon is not a skull, and definitely I don't need Frank in control of assorted forces of nature."

 

 

 

The Black Parade had just finished setting up when the next wave of the Drowning Doom appeared. Unlike the previous shows, several vehicles accompanied them, including a Dirgible. It was the latter that seemed most ominous - the coffin was held aloft by a large Victorian-styled balloon and hung above them like the dark new moon.

“To un-explain the unforgivable..." Gerard started to sing softly as the revenants advanced. He was at full volume by the time he got to “There are things that I have done, you never should ever know!” The Brides at the front of the crowd stopped cold. A ripple of stillness spread through the crowd of the Drowned.

By the time he'd finished the song, it was calm and quiet, except for the barely audible whirring of the Dirgible's propellers.

Gerard let the quiet continue for a few heavy seconds before nodding to his band, and they launched into “Cancer”. He hardly gave a thought as to what song to do next, just went with what felt like it would fit best, his band not even hesitating to follow.

"… You might wake up and notice you're someone you're not..." he continued, stalking along the stage.

The band crashed yelling into "Dead!" and by then he’d let it bloom in his heart, that indescribable feeling of being on stage, nothing could touch him, he could do anything, he could help them all.

He strutted and paraded down the stage, wings trailing behind him like banners. He saw the Dirgible and had a crazy idea. With a jump and a flap like a murder of crows taking off, he was digging his talons into the elaborately carved framing surrounding the coffin.

Beneath the music from his band, he could hear a raspy, rustling laughter coming from within the coffin.

With the last crash of cymbals, and the final scream of “DEAD!”, the wood dissolved into silvery fog beneath his fingers.

His wings flared and Gerard landed lightly on his feet. The rest of their audience had also faded away into mist, bright points of iridescent light visible among the haze.

He looked back at the stage. The ravens that seemed to be following them everywhere were still roosting in the large tree growing off to the side, perched like big feathery fruit on the bare branches arching out above the stage. It made a pretty frame. He took a deep breath. Freshly turned dirt, a cool misting drizzle of rain, and traces of copper. It was a good sort of smell. He spied Brian by the side of the stage, and smiled.

 

 

It came to a head, as things do, following this suitably dramatic event. After the concert…ritual…show…thing, Brian found Gerard standing at the edge of the hilltop graveyard. The hillside facing the entrance to the quarry resembled a giant cathedral. A rickety-looking bridge from a neighboring mound was the only path up to the flat-topped hill.  He was staring down the canyon path, the rocky dark ground covered in a layer of frost. It was a stark scene. Gerard was in his uniform, hair nearly as white as the snow on the ground, the buttons on his jacket all done up and gleaming dully in the cool sunlight.

"If I stepped off the edge right now, I wouldn’t even get hurt," Gerard said as he heard the crunch of Brian's footsteps in the snow.

Brian rushed forward and tackled the singer to the ground. "You don't joke about that!" he said fiercely, the snow touching his hands liquefying and then immediately hissing into steam in his anger.

"Don't," he begged, fingers clenching tightly in Gerard’s jacket, the fleeting touch of memories of terrible, desperate nights putting a desperate edge in his voice.

“Don’t,” Brian whispered again, taking in this flawed, beautiful man and finally he gave in and put his mouth on his, kissing him frantically, like he was trying to give all the warmth he felt back to him, to use the glow of heat that suffused his heart whenever Gerard was around to keep him from falling into that gloom again. They’d circled around this for too long.

The other man seemed surprised at first, but then melted into the kiss, making delighted little noises in the back of his throat.

Brian finally broke off the kiss and opened his eyes. Gerard was looking up fondly at him. He clearly wouldn't let him get up until he was reassured. He hugged him tightly.

"You're so warm," he said. A beat. "And I won't. ‘Course I know better than that." He let Brian pull him up, brushing off the snow and dirt.

"So," Brian said, attempting for lightheartedness. "You gonna brood out here all day? Then I better make sure you don't freeze to death."

Gerard gave him a shy but pleased little smile. Then he grew melancholy. "How much longer do you think we'll be here? I miss...everything. It's great that you and the guys are here, but..."

"Yeah. I know."

"Sure, it's great than we can help them, and I never thought we'd be an actual Black Parade for anyone. Helping put troubled souls to rest, it's like we're in a movie or something. Our own comic book, but we never signed up for that. We don't really belong here." His shadow-wings manifested and flared outward. "I can put on a great show, but that’s not really me. We're not really superheroes,” he said as he examined his darkness-sheathed hands.

"Oh fuck you Gerard," Brian retorted. "Not superheroes my ass! You do save lives, before you even thought of The Black Parade. I always believed in you. I had to MAKE you take me on as manager, remember?"

Gerard gave him a thin smile. "Thanks." He sighed. "I miss being just...me. We were all made different in this crazy world." He drew his wings around him like a cloak and watched the edges float around and throw off black wisps on the ice-crusted snow. "I don't know how much more weirdness I can take. It was insane enough when we actually got famous."

Brian rubbed his hands together, watching the small ball of fire form between his fingers. "Yeah. I know, Gee. But I'm here for you. So's Mikey, Frank, and everyone else. This is a cool place, ya gotta admit, but I'd rather not live here forever."

“And I don’t think I really like the thought of _actually_ living forever,” said Gerard. “You saw what happened, what I did today.”

He did indeed. After the concert, Bob was fatally impaled by collapsing scaffolding. That is to say, he should've been. The drummer had dug himself out, and it was only when he was dusting himself off that he saw the matching wounds on either side of his torso. The edges were damp and red, but his blood wasn’t going anywhere.

It kept happening. In the days they’d stayed in the Dry Ice Mines, they found that what should be fatal wounds just caused twinges and aches. Frank had been dropped off a cliff, lots of rocks at the bottom, naturally, and all he’d gotten were a few bruises.

After that, Gerard had to test it. It took a little convincing, but one of the Zaulia who was good with knives agreed to help him with the experiment. 

He closed his eyes. "Do it."

There was a slight rustle as she threw the knives, followed by dull _thoks_ as they made contact. Points of focused pressure bloomed down his limbs and over his torso. It felt a lot like being poked all over by a big and very pointy pencil. After the quick initial pressure, the area started throbbing with a hot pins and needles sensation.

He kept his eyes closed as she retrieved them with soft squelches. The searing pins and needles cooled into a tingle and quickly faded away completely.

“So that’s it then,” he had murmured to himself as he examined the complete lack of damage to the uniform. “We are The Black Parade.”

A soft kiss behind his ear shook Gerard from the unsettling memory.

“Hey,” Brian said softly. “Let’s focus on being alive, alright? And you know what’s good for that? Sex.” He leaned in to whisper the details of what he’d do.

“ _Oh_ ,” the singer said breathily, flushing red. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good,” Gerard said as Brian led him back to the camp.

 

 

It took only a day for them to make a decision.

Lita watched as The Black Parade busied itself with packing. Given how things had been going lately, she found herself kind of...glad they were leaving. She felt a little pang of shame over it. They were technically human after all, but...they were eerie. Even when they’d been out of uniform, there was an air of creepiness to those five young men. She’d expected it ever since they’d finishing cobbling together that vehicle of theirs, made from the remains of a Headsplitter and Drowned Ophelia’s hearse-mobile. It had shocked everyone, Frank included, when he’d played the vehicle summoning solo and the old car had materialized.

To her surprise, she found Brian among them.

"You're going too?" Lita exclaimed.

Brian nodded. "I have to. Come on Lita, you must've known I'd leave with them. The Black Parade marches on.”  

"I tried not to think about it, honestly. You've found a place here."

"But I _know_ my place is with them," he replied simply. "I never really belonged here. I'm not like Eddie. I always missed those guys, and I miss Earth."

She grew thoughtful, and had to admit it was true. She'd suspected that ever since the night he'd vanished from the Fire Baron camp and could mainly be found by the tents of The Black Parade.

"Thanks for everything, Lita. Send on my regards to everyone else. I certainly won't forget my time here."

With that, he walked out into the clearing. "Time to get moving, guys! Gerard, you better let Bob have the wheel, cuz you're riding bitch with me!" Brian yelled, adding a saucy grin.

Gerard let out a sharp little chuckle and climbed onto the bike. It was an odd sight, this laughing young man in such a somber uniform. They were followed by darkness, but still could find joy.

Lita watched as they drove off, their dark figures vanishing quickly in the fog that had rolled in. Haziness like that wasn’t uncommon in the Dry Ice Mines, but…

She stared into the mist for a while. She felt Ophelia and Eddie come up next to her. Ophelia was looking into the distance where they’d faded from sight. “I really liked their music,” she said wistfully as the mist cleared.

Lita made her decision. Not everyone would agree with it, but it felt right. “We’ll follow them. We need to see this through. We shouldn’t forget the battles the people before us fought, though they may have failed.”

 

 

Miles away, memories of a different sort were being made. The Black Parade had stopped for the night, but not everyone was asleep, instead taking advantage of the relative solitude.

"Come on, Gerard, don't make me MAKE you," Brian said. He struggled with the jacket for a few moments, cursing its hundred stupid fucking buttons. _Jesus, Gerard, you and your costumes,_ he thought.

But it was so fun getting him out of the outfits. His impatience was settled by the knowledge that Gerard wanted this too, wanted _him_ , fire-starting freak of nature and all.

Peeling off his layers felt like a deconstruction. The otherness that seemed to come with the uniforms fell away as the jacket and pants were tossed into a corner.

Brian had to stop for a while and just look. It had been way too long since any of them had really been able to rest and just be themselves. Gerard’s skin was pale and soft. He hitched up his black t-shirt and nuzzled his stomach, then moved to his neck, nibbling along the way.

Soon enough Gerard was laid bare on the blankets. "There. Nothing else getting in the way." Brian stripped quickly and pulled him on top, cupping his ass and kissing Gerard fiercely. "It's just you, and me, and we are gonna fuck and it’s gonna be awesome,” he informed him.

The singer cuddled in closer to Brian's heated body. "Shut up and do it then," Gerard murmured in his ear in a soft, inviting voice.

In response, Brian just gave his ass a squeeze and rolled them over, blanketing the singer’s body with his own. For a while they just made out, kissing and stroking each other.

It was only when Gerard made this little complaining whiny noise that Brian snapped out of the world of warm pale skin and heat that he'd fallen into.

His mouth curled into a smirk. "Oh, do you want something, Gee?" he asked casually.

Gerard made a sound of annoyance and pushed his hips up.

"Heh, okay, fine," Brian said, with a happy smile in his voice. He felt light and happy and he was quite pleased at being able to shut him up this way. He fumbled around and found the lightly-scented oil he'd gotten for just this purpose.

Gerard really does make the best noises, thought Brian as he used slick fingers to open him up. He was sliding inside and fuck yeah, it was good. Gerard thought so too, judging by the moans.

For all the anticipation, it was over way too fast. Ah well, there was always next time. And there’d be plenty of next times; Gerard would make sure of that, judging by the pleased squirming going on underneath him.

Brian flopped onto his back, still catching his breath. For a while, they just looked at each other.

"You, me, we still got this, no matter what happens. I won’t leave, and neither will the other guys. We were all in this together from the start.”

 

 

 

It ended where it had started. The car stopped outside the entrance to the Sea of Black Tears. Interestingly, the shallow creek of black water that had threaded through the canyon beside the opening in the mountain was now dry. Maybe it was because there was less of the Drowning Doomed that its power could work through. Or, and Gerard liked this idea much better, it was a sign of how they were healing this land by finally allowing the restless revenants to be at peace.

It really was astounding how much power music had. A few chords could heal, or cause a lot of destruction. It always stunned him to see the effect their songs had on the Drowned. He really hoped they weren't all so Doomed anymore.

This was a perfect spot for the last concert. And it would be. He could feel it. They'd kinda been working up to it, but this one would be where they'd play the whole album through, give voice to the entire journey.

He knew some of Ironheade was trailing behind them. The Black Parade was powerful indeed - he couldn’t fault them for freaking out. He still freaked out a little bit each time he remembered what they could do in this world. And when he saw the edges of his wings.

The road to the Sea sloped downward. If they really had to, the other humans could get rid of the remaining Drowned before they became a risk. They’d set up above the entrance to the Sea, leaving the way clear for the Drowned, but close enough to see them off.

Without him even thinking about it, the wings settled around him like a soft cloak. He flew to the top of the round skull sculpture that acted as the entrance to the Sea. Or was it a lake? It did seem more like a lake, but given that it was actually salty, perhaps Sea really was more accurate.

He shook off the silly thoughts about semantics and perched on the top of the carved hill. The walls of the short dried out canyon were carved and contained window-like panels, much like the interior of the cave that held the Sea of Black Tears.  There was a graveyard on one side, just one of many dotted across this region. Thorny bushes blooming with black roses were scattered among the plots. All of the headstones had been too worn or overgrown to read clearly, but he thought he'd seen a few familiar Ironheade names among them.

His heart panged fiercely at the thought of all those people, tears starting to prick at his eyes again. So many had been lost in the last war for human freedom. He couldn't blame the Black Tear Rebellion. The demons were intimidating, and the people had grabbed onto the only source of power they could find that they'd thought would finally bring them victory.

This whole place was full of ghosts, and they were all waiting for The Black Parade.

The stage was absolutely amazing. It hadn’t been here last time they’d passed this way, of course. It looked like an elegant gothic house. The ‘roof’ was a tarnished silver-gray, aged and comfortable. There were spires and wrought iron curlicues and deep crimson curtains. From here, he could barely make out the faded white stars on the backdrop.

This would be the last concert. He could feel it. They all did. Brian would remain side-stage and control the pyrotechnics, as usual, while they played.

Gerard stepped off the edge and swooped gently down. It wouldn’t be long before the audience was here. It was time for the penitence ball.

 

 

It was the most intense thing any of them had ever felt. There was an amazing energy in the air, driving them on. They poured everything they had into the music. Gerard felt wild, swept up in the force yet still completely in control. He could stop, but better not to, it felt right, this was the only thing he _could_ do. This was where everything led.

Gerard strutted and preened and it was a grand spectacle indeed. He slumped dramatically to the floor as “The Sharpest Lives” stuttered to its end.

It took only moments for the warmth of Brian’s presence to appear by his side. He’d been standing watch from side-stage. He said nothing, just bent down to kiss Gerard and be enveloped in shadowy wings. He pulled the singer to his feet, still sharing the intensity of being here and now, exactly where they were, in this shattering instance of change.

Gerard opened his eyes to see Brian smiling at him. And so, the concert went on. "Mama" had a particularly electrifying effect. The previous stillness became a swirl of movement. The Gravediggers especially really seemed to like it. Several even went so far as to start twirling the Brides into an insane sort of waltz.

Wow, that's something you don't see every day.

Inspired by this, Gerard sashayed over to Brian and dragged him out on stage, more or less copying the waltzing dance as he sang.

“Through fortune and flame we fall...”

 

 

As they went into the final notes of “Famous Last Words”, those that remained of the Drowning Doom were dissolving into motes of light. Soon it was like they were in the center of a field of exploding stars, flooded with warmth and radiance. It felt like they could taste the freedom of those that were finally at peace.

In the last ringing echoes of the music, the band’s final words were spoken. “We are The Black Parade. And so are you,” Gerard’s voice rang out, and was echoed by his band.

It was like being illuminated by a hundred spotlights, everything became clear, and they saw things were right. Something in the world shifted at that moment. The fires behind them blazed and began to consume the top of the stage. Then there was a moment of darkness as the curtain dropped.

The music was done but it still felt like it had left behind…something. Something too big for anyone to really put into words at the moment. Soon enough, the words would return and would be written down and preserved for the rest of time. Many would later say there was exhilaration, a feeling of rightness to the world, a sense of purity found in this voyage through the darkness. It was something they hadn’t felt even after the end of the war, it was…peace. Peace with themselves and with the world, redeeming the ugliness of the past.

As the lights faded away, and people blinked away the floating spots in their eyes, they saw that The Black Parade had vanished as quietly as they’d arrived in this world. Fire had seared the top of the stage, and the curtain was pooled on the floor. Behind it, the band was nowhere to be seen. Their instruments still gleamed, standing out brightly against the sooty structure. The cymbals were as still as stone.  

Behind the stage, they would discover more changes. In the wall of the canyon there were now multiple stained glass windows. The first was a group shot, showing their instruments and abilities. Gerard was at the peak of the window, wings arching out. Brian glowered from the bottom, yellow-white flames threading their way upwards. The rest of the windows displayed the story of The Black Parade. The colors seemed to glow, even the black. It was more light than that land had seen in ages.

The Black Parade would stand guard over the Sea now.

 

 

Brian woke slowly. He was lying on something warm.

He gripped the surface experimentally. Soft, covered in some kinda of fabric. Warm and yielding. Oh. It was a some _one_. He cracked open an eye and saw short white hair. Gerard. He cuddled closer. His Gee. Yeah. He’d have to tell him about that crazy dream he’d had. There was fire and demons and emo zombie-ghouls. Gerard had been there, and the rest of the guys too.

The door clicked open.

“Hey guys!” boomed Worm. “Bus call in fifteen! You worn out already? You’ve played more intense shows than that!”

This startled the rest of them awake. They all looked around, as if consciousness was a new and confusing experience. Frank greatly resembled a puppy suddenly awoken from a nap. Bob was not at all pleased either, as the short guitarist was sitting on the drummer’s back.

They staggered to their feet and wondered what the hell had just happened to them.

 

 

My Chemical Romance and their band manager somehow all managed to change out of their stage costumes and stagger onto the tour bus. That being accomplished, they collapsed onto the couch, the floor, or any other surface that would hold their weight. Gerard was clinging to Brian like a limpet.

They  all stared at each other in what would be surprise if they weren't so tired.

Bob finally spoke up. "Please tell me I wasn't the only one that had the dream with the fire and demons and us playing reaper to a whole undead army."

There was a collective sigh of relief. "Nope," Brian said tiredly, stroking Gerard's hair.

"Well, maybe we all had the same collective hallucination," Ray said unhappily.

Frank suddenly sat up, clambering over the older Way to scrabble at the sleeves of Brian's t-shirt.

"Come on Bri, take off your shirt, that'll settle it!"

Brian looked at the guitarist like he was insane, but was too tired to argue.

"There it is!" Frank crowed. On his bicep was a demonic bird surrounded by swirling flames, all inked in black.

"You didn't have that before, did you," Mikey said flatly.

Brian was staring at the tattoo. It was pretty good - it had a sort of minimalist feel to it. “No,” He said. “No I didn’t.”

Bob was hugging one of the pillows. At Brian’s words, he sat up and took a gleaming object out of his pocket.

"I found this in the coat," he said, letting the glossy black-enameled pocketwatch dangle on its silver chain. He popped it open to show them. It didn't look too strange at first glance. Then they realized the fancy watch hands were unmoving, and longer than most, decorated with little flourishes and oriented to the four compass points. Not especially functional, but familiar all the same.

“Like the drum kit,” Ray murmured. “It happened. It was all real.”

“Yeah. I’d say so,” Gerard murmured, staring at the deep black wisps of shadows around his hands.


End file.
